On This Day - What happened 24 January 2020 AD

On 24 January, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called an emergency COBRA meeting to discuss the outbreak and country preparedness.

On the following day, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel signed the withdrawal agreement in Brussels, and it was sent to London where Boris Johnson signed it.

By 24 January 2020, a total of 15 cities in the Hubei, including Wuhan, were placed under similar quarantine measures.

A specialty hospital named Huoshenshan Hospital has been constructed as a countermeasure against the outbreak and to better quarantine the patients. Wuhan City government had demanded that a state-owned enterprise construct such a hospital "at the fastest speed" comparable to that of the SARS outbreak in 2003. On 24 January, Wuhan authorities specified its planning, saying they planned to have Huoshenshan Hospital built within six days of the announcement and it will be ready to use on 3 February. Upon opening, the specialty hospital has 1,000 beds and takes up 30,000 square meters. The hospital is modeled after the Xiaotangshan Hospital, which was fabricated for the SARS outbreak of 2003, itself built in only seven days. State media reported that there were 7,000 workers and nearly 300 units of construction machinery on the site at peak.

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