As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to convert convention centers and hotels into alternate care facilities in early April to alleviate pressure on local hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, the initial plan was to care for COVID-19 negative patients in places such as Chicago's McCormick Place, New York's Jacob K. Javits Center and Detroit's TCF Center. That strategy shifted after leaders in the USACE, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services saw what USACE engineers could do with convention center spaces.

"I was not convinced we could actually change the pressure in these large convention centers to a point that would actually achieve the desired results [of care for COVID-19 positive patients] we're looking for," says Lt. Gen. Todd T. Semonite, chief of engineers and commanding general of the USACE at a Pentagon press conference April 3. "When I was in Detroit the other day with the governor [of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer] talking to the mechanical engineers, our guys and their guys have done a phenomenal job on some relatively minor changes."