China’s Wuhan city, the center of the outbreak of the new coronavirus, will build a second dedicated hospital to treat patients.
Construction has already started on the first facility, with enough space for 1,000 patients, which is expected to be completed by 3 February.
The second, which is designed to have 1,300 beds, is due to be finished within three weeks.
This may seem like an unrealistic time frame, however, China has a history of quickly building hospitals at times of crisis.
During the SARS outbreak in 2003, 7,000 people worked day and night in Beijing, taking just seven days to build the Xiaotangshan facility.
It is believed to hold the world record for the fastest construction of a hospital and is thought to have treated one-seventh of China’s SARS patients at the time.
China’s Peoples Daily newspaper called the building “a miracle in the history of medicine”.