Five days after the TCF Center was ready to start admitting coronavirus patients, eight people are being treated at the 1,000-bed field hospital in Detroit.

The TCF Regional Care Center, the former Cobo Convention Center that was transformed into the field hospital, admitted its first patient Sunday and by Tuesday morning, a total of eight coronavirus patients were at the facility.

It was a slow start for the field hospital, which was converted over 11 days beginning March 31. But state officials are expecting that the patient count will begin to pick up by the end of the week.

The patients who test positive for COVID-19 and are eligible to be transferred from southeast Michigan hospitals to the TCF field hospital aren't the most seriously ill and can't be dependent on ventilators. Acute patients will stay in intensive care units at the hospital.

More:Field hospital at Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi scales back from 1,000 beds to 250

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While southeast Michigan hospitals are being flooded with a surge of coronavirus patients, it will take some time to determine whether a patient can be transferred to TCF, said Michelle Grinnell, spokeswoman for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

The profile of the TCF Center patient: 10 days after the onset of coronavirus symptoms, and hospitalized for at least 48 hours to make sure the person won't need a ventilator.

"We would anticipate that the patients admitted during last week's surge will be in a position to start being transferred to TCF this week," she said. "While the hospitals were in a better position to manage patient load over the weekend, we are watching this closely and stand ready when the need for these beds is there."

At TCF, there are 600 beds for coronavirus patients who need to be hospitalized but don't need a ventilator or intensive care, and 400 beds for patients who are considered recovering and over the most serious part of their illness.

The availability of the beds at TCF comes at a time when the number of coronavirus cases seems to be leveling off, and hospitals are seeing fewer admissions. Still, more than 27,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Michigan as of Tuesday afternoon.

Bob Riney, president of health care operations and chief operating officer of Henry Ford Health System, said Monday that admissions of new coronavirus patients over the last five days appear to have leveled off, though he added that there was a jump in new patients Sunday night.

“So we have seen a flattening,” he said. “… But certainly just a caution point that leveling off does not mean in any way, shape or form that we are starting to decline. … We're looking at these numbers carefully every day, but certainly, we have a ways to go.”

Even the slight flattening in new admissions, Riney said, has taken some of the pressure off the health system’s staff, which has been working extra shifts and overtime to manage the coronavirus surge. Many nurses, doctors and other health care workers have been reassigned to parts of the health system that are in high demand because of the pandemic.

When the number of new patients was surging, the state announced the conversion of the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi into a second field hospital. But thebed count for the facility, originally another 1,000 beds, has been scaled back to 250.

And plans for another field hospital conversion — an indoor track facility at the University of Michigan — has been put on hold by Michigan Medicine because the surge of patients is beginning to level off.

The state said the Suburban Showplace facility could ramp up to 1,000 beds if more are needed. That facility is expected to be done and ready to accept patients by April 20.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, toured the Suburban Showplace field hospital Tuesday with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Rochester Hills and Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter. If all the beds aren't needed, that should be viewed as a success, he said in a conference call with reporters.

"They have put in some of the extra lines for oxygen and power should they need to add more beds. There may not be a need for the additional capacity, but it's better to have it in place," he said. "It's kind of like an insurance policy. You may never use it ... But if we see a big spike in infections you want to have that excess capacity."

Staff writer Kristen Jordan Shamus contributed to this report. Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.