Coronavirus death toll in Spain exceeded 9,000 with 864 new deaths recorded on Wednesday, as number of confirmed cases topped 100,000.

The country is frantically working to add to the number of intensive care units in hospitals which are quickly filling up in the country’s hardest-hit regions.

The country counted on 5,779 ICU beds before the coronavirus crisis. As of Tuesday, it has 5,607 patients in ICU. But, in the leading hot spots of Madrid and northeast Catalonia have almost tripled their capacity in recent weeks by adding intensive care beds at hospital facilities and deploying field hospitals. In the Spanish capital, the first intensive care units were finished on Wednesday in a huge field hospital that is planned to hold 5,500 patients when completed.

Although Spain has had over 19,000 recovered patients as of Tuesday, a key issue is that COVID-19 patients who need intensive care occupy a bed for some 3-4 weeks. So authorities are warning that even when Spain manages to halt contagions there will still be increasing pressure on its hospitals for several days or weeks.

Meanwhile, Spanish authorities are bringing into the country 1,500 purchased ventilator machines and asking local manufacturers to ramp up production, with some creative solutions employed, such as snorkeling masks repurposed as breathing masks.