My brother-in-law is currently hospitalized after going to the ER last Tuesday with respiratory problems and a cough. Age mid 70s and a long history of breathing and cardiac troubles. Was given the Covid-19 test Wed, and test just came back negative this morning, which we are all pretty thankful of considering there was a family wide BBQ & gathering 3 weeks ago that he and both my sisters were at (Jane and I did not attend) . He's onconstant 02 but not a ventilator..just the mask. No visitors of course. Thursday night, they transferred him from Kingwood hospital to a newly reopened hospital about 35 miles away in Tomball Tx..Kingwood is trying to empty out as many patients as possible to be able to take on overflow patients from Houston hospitals.

We aren't some 3rd world banana republic country, so there won't be (as some narrow minded person recently suggested) any M*A*S*H Army tents springing up outside our hospitals, but we will need more beds than what some cities currently have available.

NRG stadium and the big George Brown convention center have been identified by USACOE as locations to set up temporary hospitals if they are needed to take in non-covid cases to free up current facilities to care for Houston's Covid patients.

New York City is almost done converting Javitt's Convention Center into a 2900 bed facility and are starting on a 2nd one and 3rd one. They did it by activating 2 different Army field hospitals. Six hundred soldiers from those, the 531st Hospital Center from Fort Campbell Ky and the 9th Hospital Center from Fort Hood Tx flew to the New York on Thursday, ahead of the arrival of their medical equipment that was being transported in 108 tractor trailer trucks. US Army expects the Javitts hospital to be up and running by mid next week if not before. The hospital will be staffed by 350 medical personnel from FEMA and the two Army hospitals.


A 3rd one thousand bed hospital is formed by Navy Hospital ship USNS Comfort, which is due to arrive in NYC on Tuesday.

The 627th Hospital Center from Fort Carson, Colorado will deploy to Seattle, where an advance team is coordinating with state and local authorities to determine where a temporary hospital could be established there. McConville said possible locations include CenturyLink Field -- home of the Seattle Seahawks -- and a state fairground.

The US Army sent out a request early last week to gauge how many retired military medical people would be willing to return to temporary active duty to staff the new and existing facilities and received over 9000 affirmative replies.


Accommodations will be somewhat spartan by civilian standards, but it will get the job done.
Javitt's Center today:


As of Friday, nationwide, a total of 62,447 medical professionals or retirees had volunteered to help — a 10,000-person increase from the day prior,
This is America. We don't need no 500 stinkin excavators hen peckin around!

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 03-28-2020).]

quote Originally posted by maryjane: How things are done here in America......

I remember a thread you had about China clearing land for the construction of a major medical facility. You asked if we could do it as quickly.

Yep, now I have my answer and then some.

quote Originally posted by maryjane: As of Friday, nationwide, a total of 62,447 medical professionals or retirees had volunteered to help — a 10,000-person increase from the day prior, This is America. We don't need no 500 stinkin excavators hen peckin around!

HAGO!

quote Originally posted by maryjane:

Can anyone explain to me exactly what's going on here? I'm not a geo-technical engineer, and I've only used one of the small bobcat bucket loaders (one of the tiny ones) in my entire life, so I probably don't get it. But this looks ridiculous. My impression here is that this is a "show of force," i.e. the Communist party trying to show the rest of the world how they can quickly mobilize and solve problems because... of course... the Government is the solution. But my suspicion is that this is just a bunch of nonsense with 30-40 back-hoes just digging around. I'd figure the first thing you want to do in building a foundation after testing for suitability, is level the ground and dig for foundation support beams... none of which looks like is going on here???

I guess I posted the explanation of it elsewhere.
They are digging up stumps and leveling. Search isn't working right now, but I'll try to find my post..

//www.fiero.nl/forum/F...HTML/124639.html#p13

quote Originally posted by maryjane: I guess I posted the explanation of it elsewhere. They are digging up stumps and leveling. Search isn't working right now, but I'll try to find my post.. //www.fiero.nl/forum/F...HTML/124639.html#p13

Haha... I see the discussion in there. I'm on Randy's side here... while I'm sure they made quick work of the stumps and stuff, I'd have to say that specific scene (and that day) probably had more to do with propaganda than anything else. It's a "show of force," which we know China is always all about. Whenever they present something, it's always mean to show the power of the party, and less about what's actually being done.

I think the mobile hospital units are pretty cool... we don't have those, but I think that has more to do with the fact that we are a Republic, and no single party controls everything.

We don't need those...we have mobile units from the military, the Veterans Administration, FEMA, and Red Cross. Also have some via 'do-gooder' organizations like the one some private organization has erected in Central Park NYC. 65 beds isn't much but as they say 'round here...mejor que nada.