Setting up a temporary hospital is one thing. Staffing it with people who know how to run it something altogether different. Shasta County Health and Human Services Director Donnell Ewert says hundreds of people will be needed to run the 125 bed field hospital inside the Redding Civic Auditorium 24 hours a day. The facility will not be operational unless a severe surge of coronavirus patients floods Mercy and Shasta Regional. The field hospital would be used for non-covid non-acute patients in the event that more space is needed in the two major hospitals for covid patients, where they have the capability of expanding their “negative pressure” areas that prevent contaminated air from circulating out. Ewert says they’re hoping to tap the governor’s newly formed California Health Corps for hospital staff. The other half of the 250 beds have been set up in Chico, which will handle the southern part of the 13 county region. Advance Redding, the Bethel Church-owned company that manages the Redding Civic Auditorium, will be leasing the facility to the County, which hopes to recover the costs through FEMA funds.