The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday opened the Sean Collier Care Center, a fully licensed facility for patients with COVID-19.

The 75-bed facility is named in honor of fallen MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, who was killed in the line of duty days after the Boston Marathon bombings. Collier was shot and killed in his police cruiser on April 18, 2013, when the two men wanted for the Boston Marathon bombings ambushed him. He was 27.

The center will provide care for the MIT and Cambridge communities, the school said. It was funded by the university and will be staffed by MIT Medical.

The Sean Collier Care Center was opened to alleviate the stress put on health care facilities across the state as a surge of coronavirus cases arrive. Gov. Charlie Baker warned Massachusetts residents that “difficult days” were ahead. Officials in Worcester announced Wednesday that the surge had reached the city.

Like other field hospitals across the state, the MIT facility is meant for patients needing care, but who aren’t suffering from severe cases of the coronavirus, the university said.

Eligible patients from the Cambridge community will be referred to the new center by clinicians at Mount Auburn Hospital and other local ambulatory care centers, MIT said. Patients must transfer directly from one of these partner organizations to come to the new facility.

“We are proud to help our neighbors in Cambridge by creating the Sean Collier Care Center,” MIT Medical Director Cecilia Stuopis told MIT News. “With this facility, we hope to do our part to ease some of the strain that our fellow health care facilities are feeling at this time.”

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