LAS VEGAS (AP) - A pop-up tent complex was opening Monday in Las Vegas to provide temporary shelter, monitoring and treatment for as many as 500 homeless coronavirus patients in need of quarantine or isolation but not hospitalization, officials said.
“If we do have to use it, we’re ready. We’re prepared,” Clark County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick told reporters who toured the nine residential and three administrative tents built during the past two weeks in paved parking lots outside Cashman Center.
The facility resembles an Army field hospital, with three rows of white air-conditioned and heated tents containing cots in curtained cubicles. Restroom and shower facilities with running water are separate. Lighting, fence screens and security guards at entrances are designed to provide privacy and confidentiality for residents. Visitors will not be allowed.
The $6 million project is not a walk-up homeless shelter, said Lisa Morris-Hibbler, city community services chief and complex director. It will accept ambulance deliveries of people who have no place to live but have been exposed to the coronavirus, show symptoms such as cough or fever, or are confirmed to have the COVID-19 respiratory illness.
The opening came as Nevada health officials reported the number of diagnosed COVID-19 patients statewide approached 3,000, with at least 114 deaths. Nationally, Johns Hopkins University tallies more than 500,000 cases, and almost 23,000 deaths.
The tent project is visible from the governor’s office at the Grant Sawyer State Office Building. It is in the same city-owned property where officials hurriedly painted lines on asphalt to mark places for homeless people to sleep after a nearby 524-bed charity shelter closed for disinfection when a man was found to have had the virus. That center has reopened.
For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness including pneumonia and death.
Dr. Marc O Griofa, medical director at the center, said pin-prick blood tests for the virus can be done on-site with preliminary results in about 15 minutes.
The tent facilities are in addition to a 40-bed temporary hospital being built next to the Southern Nevada Health District office a few miles west of the Las Vegas Strip.
City Councilman Cedric Crear told reporters the indoor Cashman Center conference hall and a baseball stadium might still be used for a temporary hospital if COVID-19 cases spike in the Las Vegas area.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined that a 900-bed field hospital could be put at the sprawling Las Vegas Convention Center to handle coronavirus patients.
Task Force Nevada commander Col. Aaron Barta said the corps, state and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials also assessed possible sites in Reno and Carson City to create extra medical treatment capacity if needed for COVID-19 patients.
Clark County officials said contracts were reached last week with a behavioral medical clinic, an addiction treatment facility and the Salvation Army of Southern Nevada for a combined 185 beds to handle isolation patients and relieve pressure on area hospitals.
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