China's COVID-hit Jilin builds more makeshift hospitals

CHANGCHUN, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Hard hit by the COVID-19 resurgence, Jilin Province in northeast China is racing against time to build more makeshift hospitals to thwart the latest outbreak.

The construction of eight makeshift hospitals, with 11,488 beds, has been completed, and two temporary quarantine facilities which boast 662 isolation rooms have been established, according to a press conference on the province's COVID-19 prevention and control on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, a convention center-turned makeshift hospital was put into use in the provincial capital Changchun, and started to admit its first batch of patients. The hospital can provide more than 1,500 beds.

Jilin Province is making every effort to complete construction on two more makeshift hospitals, and five more temporary quarantine sites with 27,555 rooms, said Gao Peng, a specialist on respiratory and critical care medicine from the Second Hospital of Jilin University, at the press conference.

The makeshift hospitals will treat asymptomatic cases and patients with mild symptoms, Gao added.

Jilin Province registered 1,456 confirmed locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 397 local asymptomatic carriers on Tuesday, the provincial health commission said Wednesday.

Amid the fresh outbreak, most of the province's local infections have been registered in the cities of Changchun and Jilin.

The province announced a temporary suspension on inter-provincial and inter-city travel starting from Monday.