So, it seems to me that a capacity solution is obvious.

[Thunderbeast]

Hospitals need to quickly add capacity. The Corps of Engineers need not build new buildings.

Thousands of schools are closed. Why not equip these buildings with beds and equipment (no small task in either scenario). Schools have hvac, kitchens, bathrooms, and other infrastructure. It is a start.

Don't get me wrong. I don't pretend that temporary provisioning of equipment and staff will not be the hard part. Why delay the whole process while substandard buildings or tents are erected.

[msongs]

1. good idea, the elementary school a block from me is empty for a month tho we have a low count so far

[BigmanPigman]

2. Gov Newsome of CA already said he will use hotels if needed

but this was before schools were closed. If schools are closed until Summer they should use them since they are already govt owned and it won't harm the hotels.

[Igel]

6. Hotels that meet the requirements.

Hence schools are ruled out.

One of the requirements is that the HVAC doesn't just pick up or easily allow the air from one room to pass into another room or area. So many hotels are like this: Each room has its own heating and cooling system, pulling in air from outside and returning it outside.

Most schools have central cooling and heating systems that pull in air from outside and distribute it throughout the building. So my classroom has vents which force cool air (or warm air) into the room and out the door into the halls, where it gets pulled into exhaust vents. If you're in my classroom and coughing, that virus will be sucked into the hall for anybody who wanders by to run into, and (if I remember correctly) that virus will have to go 20 or 30 feet down the hall in one direction to be picked up (or maybe it'll go entirely or partially in the other direction--depends on airflow).

Since my building has clerestories and I'm on the second floor, it's also possible for air from my room to be pulled to the first floor.

There may be some schools built in such a way that every room has its own intake and exhaust. I think I've seen schools like that in fairly rural Arizona.

[BigmanPigman]

7. I have permanent respiratory damage from the air conditioning in

my classroom. It was built as the neighborhood realtors' offices and meant to be temporary but the cheap school district tried to keep it and put air conditioning in it. By the time I moved into that room the ceiling tiles and walls were stained brown and the tiles buckled from the weight of stagnant water that had been in there for years. My students and I were showing each other how to use inhalers since we were all sick within 3 weeks. The school district gave me a fan and a can of Lysol and told me to keep the door closed, there were no windows. All 8 rooms were in one building with shared walls and no hallway. My room was the worst by far and had a history of illness I found out later. I was out sick so much I finally went to my union and within a week I was called and told not to return to school, they were demolishing the entire building and replacing it with a new, portable one that was safe.

I see what you mean about shared/recirculated air. I have been sick with everything under the sun since that happened.

[yonder]

8. +1.

[Jamastiene]

3. Triages, isn't that what they are called?

Sounds like a good idea, if this thing doesn't wipe us all out. They can just disinfect the places and things can go back to normal, if things are ever going to go back to normal. I don't see why America didn't plan. Well, I do. It's called the Trump Administration. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have thinking people in charge at the local level. I can count that out in my hometown.

[captain queeg]

4. I saw some politician recommending using the Corps.

The built a hospital in China in 10 days I think. I doubt the Corps could pull that off

[canetoad]

9. They called it a hospital

It was a warehouse of full of sick people with minimal care.

[radical noodle]

5. I said the same thing

in a different DU thread tonight. It makes perfect sense to me.