You are reading

Temporary Hospital at US Open Tennis Center Will Begin Taking Patients This Week

Photo: US Open

April 8, 2020 By Allie Griffin

The temporary hospital being built inside the Billie Jean King Tennis Center — the home of the U.S. Open — will begin seeing coronavirus patients this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today.

The hospital will also be able to see more patients than originally planned. The city increased the number of beds at the center from 350 to 470 beds.

Furthermore, 20 beds have been converted into ICU beds for the most vulnerable patients.

“One of the crucial things again [is] adding additional beds to relieve some of the pressure on our core hospitals,” de Blasio said his daily briefing this morning.

Last week, he said the temporary hospital will serve as a direct overflow facility for the heavily-burdened Elmhurst Hospital.

“This place will be a lifesaving place,” he said from inside the tennis center. “This place will not only help folks inflicted with coronavirus, help them to survive and recover and go home — it is specifically going to help patients who come through Elmhurst Hospital and can receive care here.”

The neighborhoods surrounding Elmhurst Hospital have become the epicenter of the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

Queens overall has the highest number of COVID-19 cases and related deaths among the five boroughs — at 25,715 and 1,136 respectively, as of this morning — but the larger Elmhurst area has been particularly hit by the deadly virus.

Corona has the highest number of cases in the city at 1,659 cases, while Elmhurst has 1,142 and Jackson Heights has 916, as of yesterday at 5 p.m.

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Amazon faces largest U.S. strike as Maspeth teamsters join nationwide picket lines Thursday

Hundreds of warehouse workers and drivers walked off the job and joined the picket line outside the massive DBK4 Amazon fulfillment center in Maspeth on Thursday morning as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) launched the largest strike ever against the $2 trillion corporation in New York City, Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco, and Illinois.

Amazon workers at other facilities across the country say they are prepared to join them to protest unfair labor practices after the IBT set a Dec. 15 deadline for Amazon to begin negotiations on a new agreement. The union was ignored.

East Elmhurst man busted for a fatal collision in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on the 4th of July: NYPD

A Queens grand jury indicted an East Elmhurst man in connection to a July 4th fatal collision at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Yersson Diaz, 27, of Ericsson Street just south of LaGuardia Airport, appeared at Queens Criminal Court for a summons on Tuesday and was taken into custody, according to an NYPD spokeswoman. He was booked Tuesday afternoon at the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst, where he was charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death.