Health |

McCormick Place set to be converted into Illinois’ first field hospital for 3,000 coronavirus patients by April 24

McCormick Place will be converted into Illinois’ first field hospital to handle 3,000 coronavirus patients as the state braces for a possible surge in cases in the coming weeks, officials said.

“We’re not waiting for the worst. We’re preparing ourselves for the worst,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Saturday at his daily briefing.

The governor’s remarks came a day after Army Corps of Engineers Commanding General Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite said he hoped to complete the work by April 24. The Chicago Department of Public Health said 500 beds are expected to be ready there in the coming week.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Friday, Semonite described plans to transform parts of the sprawling convention center into three halls with the ability to treat COVID-19 patients of varying degrees of severity.

Hall C would be able to treat about 500 patients with less serious injuries, while Hall A would be able to treat about 1,800 patients with greater complexity.

Hall B would be “the hardest one,” Semonite said, including 750 self-contained units.

“They’ve asked us to go get some type of a module we could set inside there,” he said. The corps is in discussions with contractors over whether to buy isolated containers or use tents, added Semonite, who indicated he likely would be back in Chicago “early next week.”

Chicago Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady has said she met with members of the Army Corps of Engineers at McCormick Place to begin figuring out how to set up thousands of hospital beds there for coronavirus sufferers.

The exercise was not done “in a theoretical sense,” Arwady said Thursday. The United Center also will transform into a logistics hub for Chicago’s coronavirus response — used for food distribution, first responder staging and collecting medical supplies.

McCormick Place has lost major convention business since the outbreak, and the Army Corps’ news comes as coronavirus cases across the country and in Illinois continue to escalate at exponential rates. On Saturday, state health officials announced that Illinois had 47 COVID-19 related deaths as well as 3,491 known cases.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot also said Friday that the worst could still be ahead for Chicago.

“Duration, I don’t think anybody really knows,” she told the Tribune. “We have some projections on when we think we will hit our peak. It’s not a secret that most of them put them sometime in April, but what precise date, what date range, varies depending upon the model and the assumptions.”

Lightfoot said the most pressing problem going forward “is making sure that our health care system can sustain a surge of cases.”

“That means both limiting the surge but also making sure that we’ve got enough coordination, beds and capacity to sustain what will come our way, because it’s coming,” Lightfoot said. “It’s just a question of how high will the peak be and over what period of time.”

City officials are keeping a tally on the number of available hospital beds, people in intensive care units, the number of ventilators being used and hospital capacity, she said. Public health officials are in contact with hospitals about collaboration and coordination, Lightfoot said, to help things run smoothly.

The city’s public health department released a statement late Friday night saying it is working with the state, Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority to help with the expected surge of hospitalizations in the coming weeks.

“The temporary health site at McCormick Place will function as a field hospital, providing a large quantity of beds, including 500 anticipated to come online in the coming week. We remain focused on working in partnership to build up resources and staffing for this site and across the system so that we can combat COVID-19, alleviate added stress to our hospitals and healthcare workers, and ensure patients across Chicago receive the care they need,” the statement read.

Across the country, the Army Corps of Engineers is looking at 114 different facilities in 50 states and five territories, Semonite said. Officials already have assessed 81 of them, he said.

“The one that really has popped here in the last 24 hours is the one in Chicago,” Semonite said.

Exhibition halls at the Javits Center in New York already are being converted into a field hospital of more than 2,900 beds for non-COVID-19 patients. McCormick Place would be home to patients with COVID-19, Semonite said.

Engineers would be able to create negative pressure treatment areas needed for treating COVID-19 patients at the Chicago convention center, he said.

“I did not think we could meet the COVID standard in a massive big building, but my engineers are telling me we think we’ve got the capability to do that,” Semonite said.

“We have a very, very narrow window of opportunity, and if we don’t leverage that opportunity, we’re going to miss it,” he said of national efforts to increase hospital bed capacity.

It was unclear how much the conversion at McCormick Place would cost. Semonite put the figure at $75 million, but FEMA spokesman Mark Peterson said that total isn’t just for McCormick Place.

“The rest is to potentially scope out three other facilities, but that’s at the direction and request of the state of Illinois,” Peterson said.

Chicago Tribune’s Rick Pearson contributed.

gpratt@chicagotribune.com