JUST IN: The US now has more coronavirus cases reported than Italy, with more than 80,800 cases, according to a CNN tally. China still leads the global number of reported cases with more than 81,000 cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University
From CNN's Ryan BrowneThe Pentagon announced Thursday that it has awarded a $15 million contract to the operators of the Javits Center to convert the facility into a hospital by April 9 to help alleviate the burden the coronavirus is placing on civilian hospital infrastructure.“New York Convention Center Operating Corp., New York, New York, was awarded a $15,250,000 firm-fixed-price contract to retrofit the Jacob K.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said this earlier this week that he anticipates the field hospitals being used to temporarily alleviate the strain on civilian hospitals in order to allow the US Army Corps of Engineers to retrofit hotels, convention centers and college dormitories into makeshift hospitals.
“How I foresee our hospitals being used is during the early stages of the pandemic, the virus hitting a city where they're still trying to ramp up capability, bed space, we can come in for a short period of time, for a few weeks to provide that capacity until they get either gyms converted, hotels converted, college dorms converted, all those things that the Corps of Engineers is working on right now," Esper said.
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