Countries around the world are setting up makeshift field hospitals in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
With the number of global cases of Covid-19 surpassing 500,000, governments have had to construct temporary sites to help hospitals manage the overwhelming number of patients.
In the UK, the ExCel centre in London is being converted into a facility to be able to treat 4,000 people.
Downing Street said on Thursday that 500 additional beds at the military-backed centre dubbed the Nightingale Hospital in the capital's docklands will be ready next week.
Officials are also considering setting up field hospitals in other sites across the UK to boost intensive care demand as the outbreak strains the NHS. The Army confirmed the SEC in Glasgow is one potential site.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman also indicated that other sites were being considered when asked about potential field hospitals in Birmingham and Manchester.
“The current focus is on getting the ExCel centre up and running as the NHS Nightingale Hospital,” he said.
“But NHS England is actively preparing for a number of scenarios as the outbreak continues and is working with clinicians and teams of military planners around the country.”
In Italy, Europe's worst hit country with more than 80,000 cases of Covid-19, hospitals have been overloaded with patients suffering from the disease.
Samaritan's Purse, a Christian disaster response group based in North Carolina, helped set up a respiratory care unit in Cremona, 60 miles southeast of Milan.
The unit, located in the parking lot across from the city hospital, provides eight intensive care unit beds equipped with ventilators, 20 beds for general care, a laboratory and pharmacy.
State authorities in Brazil said the Maracana sports complex in Rio de Janeiro will become a temporary hospital to help fight the coronavirus.
As cases of Covid-19 reached over 2,900 on Thursday, the state has turned to using sport venues for use as field hospitals.
The Maracana will join Sao Paulo’s Pacaembu stadium and the Mané Garrincha stadium in Brasilia as they are converted into temporary health facilities.
The Rio stadium held the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final as well as the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympic Games.
It was inaugurated for the 1950 FIFA World Cup and is among the largest, best known soccer venues in the world.
Soldiers were pictured setting up intensive care units in the eastern French city of Mulhouse where the intensive care unit of the main hospital has reportedly been overwhelmed by coronavirus cases.
The field hospital is made up of a temporary structure of tents and it is reserved for severe coronavirus cases that need respiratory help.
Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told parliament that the field hospital could admit up to 30 patients in intensive care.
Refrigerated trailers which are reportedly being used as makeshift morgues appeared outside two hospitals in New York on Thursday.
The US became the epicentre of the nation's coronavirus pandemic as the death toll went above 1,000 yesterday.
At least 281 people have died from Covid-19 across the city, Mayor Bill De Blasio said on Thursday, and there are 21,873 confirmed cases of the virus there.
