New York City’s efforts are continuing to find places to build medical facilities in order to ease the burden on hospitals caused by coronavirus. The city is set to lease thousands of hotel rooms, and in some cases, entire hotels. Mayor Bill de Blasio said that federal authorities are working to rent hotel rooms to serve as non-intensive care facilities for Covid-19 patients and others.
In addition, construction on a 350-bed field hospital at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens — which hosts the U.S. open — is set to begin. A 1,000-bed navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Comfort, arrived in New York on Monday, and a 68-bed hospital in Central Park will soon begin accepting patients.
The city has 20,000 hospital beds, but will need three times as many as the number of Covid-19 cases continues to rise.
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