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Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told Fox News' "The Story" Monday that residents of Chicago and other parts of the country can expect to see pop-up field hospitals like those appearing in New York City to help fight the coronavirus contagion.

Seminote praised New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying that his team was able to help transform the Jacob Javits Center on Manhattan's West Side into a 3,000-bed field hospital for non-coronavirus patients in a matter of days.

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"Governor Cuomo called us two weeks ago," Semonite told host Martha MacCallum. "He said 'Hey, I need to be able to have some help in New York City.' [Defense] Secretary [Mark] Esper asked me to go up on behalf of FEMA to figure out how can we come up with some type of a plan to help New York City. We basically created ... a standard [hospital] design. We made this very, very simple."

Semonite added that the system has enabled officials to quickly and effectively determine where and how to set up hospitals for overflow patients and take into account whether they will be treating coronavirus or non-coronavirus patients.

The commander also said he is working with Illinois officials to prepare the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago into a field hospital as well.

"We are going to take the McCormick Convention Center and we're going to stand up about 3,000 COVID beds [in] three different sections," Semonite said. "Some will have different types of capability. We expect to have the first 500 of them done by the end of the weekend. We want to go very, very aggressively."

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Host Martha MacCallum noted that New Orleans is quickly becoming an epicenter of the contagion, and asked if the Mercedes-Benz Superdome -- home of the NFL's Saints -- is being considered.

"We have got about eight gigantic contracts going in right now tonight across the United States -- about 8,500 rooms," Semonite said. "In the next couple days, we will write seven more big contracts [for] about another 3,000 [rooms]."