For days in January, Li Yue, who lives in Wuhan, the city in central China that is the epicenter of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) epidemic, stayed indoors as a preventive measure against the virus. The change came when Li, who works with engineering firm China Construction Third Engineering Bureau (CCTEB), heard the news that two emergency specialty hospitals were being built to exclusively treat 2019-nCov patients and volunteers were needed for the construction.

She signed up as a volunteer on January 26, the second day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, and her work became helping in logistics at the site of one of the hospitals, the Leishenshan Hospital (Thunder God Mountain), due to open on February 5.

Li is not alone. More than 8,000 volunteers from her organization and other engineering companies are racing against time to build the two emergency specialty hospitals. The Huoshenshan Hospital (Fire God Mountain) is the other one.

Assembling the large number of engineers and workers needed for the project during the Chinese New Year holiday was itself a massive task. The CCTEB, the key contractor of the project, called in its Wuhan-based engineers both online and offline. Engineers working for other companies in other cities or even other countries who happened to be in Wuhan at that time for the holiday also joined in when they saw the volunteer recruitment notice online.

The CCTEB also diverted its workers from other construction sites to the project and recruited more via labor agencies. Fu Jianping, general manager of one such agency, described how at the beginning some people were reluctant to work during the Spring Festival, the most important period of family reunion. But when they were told about the nature of the project, many signed up. They want to get the hospitals up and halt the epidemic as soon as possible, Fu told Xinhua News Agency.

Most of the components of the two hospitals are prefabricated. People are working in shifts to ensure the assembling is done without any break all 24 hours to speed up the work. Construction on the Huoshenshan Hospital started on January 23 and it was completed on February 2, taking only 10 days. More than 60 percent of the construction of the Leishenshan Hospital was done in five days. It is scheduled to open on February 5.

The two hospitals can accommodate 2,600 inpatients, according to the Wuhan Municipal Government.

In 2003, when the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic broke out in China, Beijing, one of its epicenters, built an emergency specialty hospital in seven days. In two months, the new Xiaotangshan Hospital treated one seventh of all SARS patients on the Chinese mainland. Most of them were cured and no medical personnel were infected.

Now, the hospital is under renovation. It may be put into operation if the epidemic affects Beijing, Lei Haichao, Director of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said during a briefing on January 30.

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

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