Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Thursday that he will designate a Memphis shopping strip mall as a temporary medical center for more than 1,000 patients, as coronavirus cases are projected to surge in coming days.
The building is in the Gateway Shopping Center on Jackson Avenue in Memphis. The temporary medical facility will aid in treating the overflow of COVID-19 patients at area hospitals, according to a report by several news outlets including The Daily Memphian.
The county’s COVID-19 positivity rate is 9.1%, Shelby County Department director Alisa Haushalter said at a news conference Thursday.
Health officials expect the surge of patients in Tennessee’s hospitals to occur the third week of April to the first of May.
People who are tested, and testing is increasing, should isolate themselves until test results are known.
The need for more beds is being worked on, she said, including a site for a new 1,000-bed hospital that will be announced soon. One of the two new deaths in the county was a person under age 40, she said. Another victim was more than 80.
The West Tennessee Forensic Center has capacity for additional morgue needs should the death toll rise.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime epidemic,” she said, and it should be treated as such.
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