Shipping containers converted into portable isolated ICU wards are being used in Italy for coronavirus patients — see inside

CURA pod ICU Turin.Max Tomasinelli

• An international group of designers, engineers, and health experts created a way to repurpose shipping containers as portable intensive care units (ICUs).
• The units are called CURA pods, and able to be installed as quickly as a hospital tent while acting as an isolation ward.
• The first CURA pods have already been installed in a temporary hospital in Turin, Italy, with more on the way.
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A hospital in Turin, Italy became the first home to CURA pods, ICUs converted from shipping containers that are equipped as isolation wards for treating coronavirus patients.

Engineers, MIT researchers, and designers collaborated on the open source project that went from concept to usable ICU in just four weeks.

The coronavirus has spread to nearly every country in the world, and infected more than 2.5 million people. A third of the world is under some kind of lockdown. Italy has been especially hard hit as hospitals were overwhelmed with serious COVID-19 cases, forcing healthcare workers to make difficult decisions about how to use resources.

CURA pods have emerged as a potential solution to quickly expand hospital capacity and ease pressure on a stressed healthcare system. The first unit opened in norther Italy on April 19. Here's what it was like.