Tragic record in US death toll: 800 days a day • US military plans to convert conference centers, hotels and open spaces to 341 makeshift hospitals
A field hospital in a conference center // Photo: AFP
The U.S. announced Tuesday (Tuesday) that it will build hundreds of makeshift hospitals near major cities to ease the burden on health care systems.
The daily death toll in the United States from the plague today was 800, the highest number so far. President Donald Trump, who addressed the White House tonight, said the next two weeks would be "very painful" for the country. "We want Americans to be prepared for the tough days ahead. We are going through a very difficult two weeks and then, hopefully, as the experts predict, we will see light at the end of the tunnel," the president said.
Nearly half of the dead in America were in the state of New York, the epicenter of the epidemic. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio pleaded for reinforcements from the administration. "We must be ready for the next week, where we expect a huge increase in the number of cases. I asked last week to deploy military personnel here," said De Blasio at the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, which was quickly converted into a field hospital.
More than 3,700 people died from COVID-19 in the United States during the outbreak, and state that most are victims of the twin disaster. Total proven patients in the U.S. rose to 184,000, up 21,000 from Monday.
Medical experts said at a White House press conference that between 100,000 and 200,000 people could end up dying from the virus in the United States, despite the partial closure in most major cities. More than 30 U.S. states have ordered people to stay home to contain the virus, a move that has strangled the economy and left millions unpaid.
Convention centers will become hospitals
The US Army Corps is looking for hotels, dormitories, convention centers and large open spaces to build 341 temporary hospitals - Todd Smonite of the Corps told ABC News on ABC News. The Corps has already converted the Jacob J. Convention Center New York's Avits to a 1,000-bed hospital in a week, the Los Angeles Convention Center has been converted into a National Guard Medical Center.
