US Open Site Increasing Number Of Beds In Temporary Hospital

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced as part of his Wednesday news conference that the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the home of the US Open, plans to increase the capacity of its makeshift hospital from 350 beds to 470 beds to help in the battle against coronavirus.

“Last week, I was at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens. What you looked at then, it was a bunch of tennis courts, indoor tennis courts. Right now, it is being converted into a hospital facility,” said de Blasio, who did a walkthrough of the facility on 31 March. “We’ll start receiving patients this week. We will convert 20 beds in the new facility to ICU care… this is a case of continuing to go faster, add more, to make sure we can serve people in need exactly when they need it."

Daniel Zausner, the chief operating officer of the USTA BJK NTC, confirmed the news, adding that the hopes are to begin receiving patients on Friday.

[TENNIS AT HOME]

The temporary hospital is being constructed inside the Indoor Training Center at the NTC, which houses 12 courts with about 100,000 square feet of space.

Additionally, according to USOpen.org, teams are utilising Louis Armstrong Stadium, the facility’s second-largest stadium, to fulfill meal packages to be sent to patients, workers and school children. There are 25,000 packages being produced per day, with those consisting of two days’ worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner.