China builds hospital in 5 days as COVID-19 cases rise in Beijing

China on Saturday finished a five-day construction project on a 1,500-room hospital as clusters of COVID-19 spread in Beijing and the surrounding provinces. China recently hit a 10-month high in COVID cases.

The facility is the one of six hospitals with a total of 6,500 rooms in the works in Nangong. They are all expected to be completed next week.

China reportedly put roughly 28 million people on lockdown this week in the the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang.

China has reached a 10-month high for COVID cases and on Friday reported 168 cases.

The numbers remain far below the infection levels the nation saw last February, when China reached a record high of approximately 15,000 daily cases.

The country has reported more than 97,000 cases and over 4,700 deaths as of Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins university data.

It remains possible that China — the site of the original coronavirus outbreak — has been underreporting its cases.
What they're saying: The Chinese government has blamed the surge on food imports and travelers visiting the country.

The new cases "are all imported from abroad. It was caused by entry personnel or contaminated cold chain imported goods," the National Health Commission said in a statement.
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