Construction has begun on a temporary pandemic response unit at Burlington’s Joseph Brant Hospital. The 93-bed unit, which is being built on hospital grounds and connected to the South Tower, is in response to an anticipated surge of COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks. “Based on the best information we have available, on the modelling and forecasting as to when the surge would be at its peak, the information we have would be between seven and 14-plus days,” said Eric Vandewall, president and CEO of Joseph Brant. “We decided a few weeks ago, based on this information, that we needed to have this additional capacity to respond to the surge as best as we could.” Dr.