Poland’s government is transforming the National Stadium in Warsaw into a field hospital to handle the surging number of people infected with the coronavirus, and expects it to be operational within days.

The government is also making preparations to create other temporary hospitals as Polish hospitals are filling up and threatening to turn into a major crisis.

“We assume that it will not be possible to stop the dynamics of the epidemic and that we will have to open more temporary hospitals”, - Mariusz Kaminski, the interior minister, said.

The hospital at the National Stadium will have 500 beds in the first stage, 50 of which will be for patients requiring intensive care. Eventually it should be able to take 1,000 patients.