Health & Fitness
Worcester's DCU Center Coronavirus Field Hospital Closing Today
News of the closure comes as Worcester hit another milestone signaling coronavirus is slowing in central Massachusetts.
WORCESTER, MA — A field hospital at Worcester's DCU Center will close Wednesday as officials see signs that the coronavirus pandemic is slowing down in central Massachusetts.
The DCU Center field hospital was set up in early April to house patients recovering from coronavirus. The intent was to keep beds at Worcester's biggest hospitals available for sicker patients.
As of Tuesday, six people were still recovering at the DCU Center. City Manager Edward Augustus said he hopes a majority of them will be discharged before the field hospital closes. If not, they will be transferred back to either UMass Memorial or Saint Vincent hospitals.
The field hospital will be "mothballed," which means that it will be able to open quickly if coronavirus surges again either this summer or in the fall.
The DCU Center was also the site of a care center for homeless people who had contracted coronavirus. That facility was closed on May 6 and the patients were transferred to a hotel in Northampton for low-income people recovering from the virus.
Officials reported another positive sign on Monday: the two largest hospitals had a combined 88 intensive care coronavirus patients, the lowest number in three weeks.
As of Tuesday, the city had counted 3,556 total coronavirus cases, plus 228 deaths at local hospitals.
