Construction began on the night of January 23 for a new specialized hospital for coronavirus patients in central China's Wuhan City. The hospital is designed to have an area of 25,000 square meters with 1,000 beds and will be put into use by February 3, officials said. 

The special hospital is being built in the Caidian District in the western suburb of the city.

According to officials, the hospital will follow the building model of the Xiaotangshan Hospital. Beijing built the Xiaotangshan Hospital, a temporary medical center, to treat and control Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which had spread rapidly on the Chinese mainland in 2003.  The hospital was completed in seven days and admitted one-seventh of the SARS patients in the country within two months, creating a miracle in the history of medicine.