From mobile morgues to pop-up hospitals, Britain is responding quickly to the spike hit of the Coronavirus with Storage Units being turned into make-shift Hospital for the sick infected people.
Storage Units = Hospital
It’s been an eerie month of corona-talk and 3 weeks of Lockdown, with everywhere on immediate close. Businesses are struggling – However, what do you do if you have a Storage Facility? You turn it into a Hospital to help those in need and help save the NHS from over-populating Royal Infirmaries and Hospices.
Generators will be set up and the temperature below 4C – which is required to prevent any human corpses from decomposing. Blue Box Storage in Doncaster isn’t being turned into Hospital due to its exterior set up, but Bryan Merrett owner of Blue Box is encouraging those other Storage Units and Facilities to step forward and help win the fight of the Invisible Killer, the Coronavirus.
An Example, the London ExCel Centre has been turned into the NHS Nightingale Hospital. It is said to be the holding point before a respectful and dignified cremation or burial can take place to send a loved one on their final journey. It is a storage facility that grieving relatives will, of course, never be allowed to visit.
Future of Storage Facilities
If someone asked you to design a hospital like this, you would normally say you need six months and an enormous team of carefully selected individuals, not a group of people thrown together over a weekend. However, with places already in places such as, Storage Facilities, Hangers, and warehouses, etc. It makes the project a lot quicker to set up and to take down once this pandemic is all over, and when businesses can hopefully go back to normal.
High Demand for Storage
Bryan Merrett, owner of Blue Box said: “I’ve seen an increased demand from domestic and student customers over the past week. Even though the UK are in a Lockdown period, we are essential to many thousands of people looking for storage containers.”
However, there has also been a few customers and small businesses move out of the storage facility due to funds that couldn’t be paid, and that little to no-income would be the main issue. Blue Box Storage did say they agreed a rent holiday or a deferral on a case-by-case basis mainly for small businesses in the local area.
Social Distancing Vs High Demand
Social Distancing is in practice, meaning it is harder for everyone not just us to run a business. However, we got to do what is safe for everyone – which means we’ve made sure that there is no non-essential staff on site, on those who operate the 24/7 security.