The Berlin city government has agreed to build a new hospital for up to 1,000 coronavirus patients with the help of the military and other partners.
The capital's health minister announced the new medical facility, German daily Tagesspiegel reported on Tuesday.
As of Monday there were 6,012 people in Germany infected with coronavirus, of which 300 are in Berlin. The newspaper did not give any details of the construction timeframe.
Tagesspiegel said that from Monday underground train services in Berlin would be reduced, with trains only running every 10 minutes.
It comes after Russia and China took similar emergency measures to accommodate the influx of patients sick with the coronavirus.
Russian authorities yesterday unveiled plans to speed-build a second 500-bed hospital to treat coronavirus victims in the country.
The new measures announced by Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin - to be in place from March 21 - came as the number of coronavirus cases in the country increased by 30 in the past day, its highest rise so far.
Even so, the nation has only 93 coronavirus cases, the lowest for any major country, and no deaths from the bug.
The new, prefabricated infectious diseases clinic - which could be ready in just 12 weeks - is to be constructed in Khabarovsk, close to the Chinese border.
Last week authorities announced work on a £92 million Moscow hospital to cope with an expected major rise in coronavirus victims.
The excavations for the new hospital are already dug and regional health minister Alexander Vitko confirmed land plots had been earmarked.
Khabarovsk region governor Sergey Furgalsaid the 'prefabricated infectious diseases hospital with up to 500 beds' had been ordered from Moscow to cope with coronavirus victims.
Talking about the Moscow hospital, Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the build would not pose a threat to the local population at a site 40 miles southwest of the Kremlin.
He said the hospital will be constructed at least 800 ft from the nearest residential building.
He said: 'I am asking you to understand my decision.'
'The hospital will be built within a short time using pre-fabricated structures but still kitted out with advanced medical equipment.
'An outer fencing and security zone will be created around the hospital building.
'Sewage runoffs will be channeled to autonomous treatment facilities equipped with decontamination systems.'
He said: 'An area in New Moscow (suburb), located outside the "concrete ring", has been chosen as the site for the hospital's construction.
'There are no major residential areas in that district. Individual houses are situated 250 metres from the future hospital.
'This distance is two-and-a-half times larger than the recommended sanitary zone.'
Vladimir Putin's spokesman said yesterday said there were no grounds to introduce a state of emergency, a move made by other countries around the world.
Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin claimed Russia's low number of cases is due to 'proactive' measures taken weeks ago to close the border with China.
He said: 'These allowed us to seriously limit the coronavirus spread in Russia.
'We have been gradually closing our borders depending on the pandemic spread.
'First of all, we have done this with China and other Asian countries, which were the first to face this threat.'
Air travel to many European countries has been curtailed. Today the frontier with close neighbour Belarus was blocked.
Denying a Chernobyl-style cover-up of the figures, Mishustin said: 'We will not hide [anything].
'We will speak absolutely openly about what is going on, what the forecasts are, what difficulties we face, and, of course, what positive changes we have managed to achieve.'
Mayor Sobyanin insisted that existing hospitals were coping with infectious diseases including coronavirus.
But he said: 'Every new case requires the hospitalisation of the patient, as well as a few more people.
'Everyone who has had contact with the carrier is hospitalised in case they show even the slightest signs of acute respiratory infection.
'There are lots of other "preventive" cases of hospitalisation, which do not lead to confirmation of coronavirus.
'Naturally, the city should be prepared for any turn of events.'
The new hospital is to 'bolster our preparedness', he said.
Currently two hospitals are at the centre of the Russian capital's war against coronavirus - Kommunarka Hospital and the Infectious Diseases Clinical Hospital Number One.
'We have started building a new hospital for infectious diseases, and we will keep working on it,' said the mayor.
The site is at Voronovskoye, close to the village of Golokhvastovo.
News of the Moscow hospital came just months after the Chinese government ordered construction workers to build a six-acre, 1,000-bed, coronavirus hospital from scratch in seven days.
The emergency facility, named the Huoshenshan or Fire God Mountain Hospital, is situated in the suburbs of Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.
The authorities instructed four construction companies to toil through the Chinese New Year holiday to build the medical centre.
It received its first batch of patients after just 10 days of construction on February 4.
Some 1,400 military medics were brought in from the People's Liberation Army to run the new hospital, which was made of revamped shipping containers and prefabricated buildings.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
