The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on 11th Avenue in New York is usually the home of events like the city’s International Auto Show, the Functional Fabric Fair and the Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo.
But Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers, is turning the 840,000 square foot facility into a makeshift hospital for the struggle against the coronavirus pandemic which has hit New York particularly hard.
The 1,000 beds being set up in the Javits Center will be for patients who don’t have the coronavirus. Like the U.S. Navy hospital ships being sent to Los Angeles and New York, its purpose is to take some of the strain off the city’s overloaded hospital system and allow local medical staff to concentrate on COVID-19 patients.
“This is a state decision on how they want to treat the patients,” Lt. Gen. Semonite told reporters Friday at the Pentagon.
Turning hotel rooms and college dorms into temporary hospitals has some benefits — they’re usually pretty comfortable — but also a major drawback. It’s harder for nurses to monitor multiple patients. Lt. Gen. Semonite said the communities seem to be leading toward using large structures like convention centers as temporary hospitals.
The Army Corps of Engineers is working through a roster of more than 100 facilities around the country that could be pressed into service. The list includes the McCormick Place in Chicago — the largest convention center in North America.
“What’s nice about using a permanent facility is you have all the infrastructure there,” Lt. Gen. Semonite said. “You already have electricity. You already have water. You already have fire protection.”
The temporary hospital at the Javits Center is scheduled to be open by Monday, with government agencies working around-the-clock to make sure everything will be ready when it opens on Monday. Among those who will be seeing patients at the temporary hospital are the doctors, nurses and medics from one of the Army field hospitals sent to help out.
Lt. Gen. Semonite said his troops are fanning out across the country to determine what governors and mayors need to take on the coronavirus.
“There’s no way we can solve this with a complicated solution. We need a very simplistic solution,” he said.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.