How the empty stadiums contributed to the fight against Covid-19

How the empty stadiums contributed to the fight against Covid-19

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An NBA player tested positive shortly before the complaint in Oklahoma City, forcing the game to be canceled. Within days, all the major sports leagues in the United States were closed.

The ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic continue to be felt in every corner of American life, as the nation approaches a year of personal and economic devastation. Nearly 400,000 Americans died from Covid-19.

Amid the turmoil, sports teams and cities opened their empty facilities for relief efforts. Because of their daily experiences with traffic flow, crowd control and project management, arenas and stadiums have proven to be practical as Covid-19 test sites and food banks.

During the 2020 electoral season, some became centers of early voting and election day, allowing Americans easier access to voting while maintaining the guidelines for social detachment.

Now, the stadiums are preparing for the next phase of fighting the pandemic. Health officials and local governments are working with sports facilities across the country to be used as vaccination centers.

Sports leagues finally restarted in the summer, with limited crowds at selected events. Many stands remain silent, but their usefulness is apparent at the beginning of the new year. The abrupt shift witnessed in 2020, from entertainment venues to critical resource centers, provided images that were often hard to believe.

Little Elm High School graduates are two meters apart from each other during graduation ceremonies at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth on May 21.

The pandemic in parking lots

The Covid-19 pandemic also brought a paralyzing economic crisis. More than 20 million Americans lost their jobs by the end of April.
Pressure on food bank facilities soon followed the March blockades. Katie Fitzgerald, chief operating officer at Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs, told CNN in late March that food banks reported a 40% increase in demand.

“It is the speed with which it is hitting us that makes it so difficult to deal with,” said Fitzgerald. “The current stocks that we have in place were not designed to meet the number of people who need help now.”

To assist with distribution, food centers have been established by charities and stadium organizations across the country.

Non-perishable foods await delivery to the United Center in Chicago in April.
People await access to a mobile food pantry at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on April 24.

Lines extend beyond expectations

The stadium’s parking lots in the spring and summer, filled in previous years by tailgaters, employees and street vendors, have instead become home to Covid-19 test pop-up tents.

Nurses and health professionals administered nasal PCR tests in a multitude of sports facilities, while the state and federal governments rushed to understand how the virus spread.

Large parking lots kept cars off the main roads, freeing up traffic. The sheer volume of people in need, however, meant that the lines would extend beyond anything expected.

People in vehicles wait to enter a Covid-19 drive-thru test site at Miller Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The vehicles line up at a Covid-19 test site at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

The election season arrives

Arenas and stadiums across the country opened their doors in the fall for an additional purpose: polling places during the 2020 election cycle. This gave many voters an alternative way to send ballots and stay safe, limiting proximity to other people and the potential exposure of Covid-19.
Initially, polling stations in Atlanta during the June primaries in Georgia suffered from long lines and fewer election officials, hampered by the realities presented by the pandemic.
In response, the Atlanta Hawks opened the State Farm Arena as a November polling center for Fulton County, easily accessible by public transport.

“State Farm Arena is an ideal solution to help us serve thousands of voters while maintaining social distancing requirements,” said Mary Carole Cooney, president of the Fulton County Registry and Elections Council, in June. “We thank the Hawks for looking for us with this creative solution.”

The NBA had more than 20 of its franchises offering their stadiums for voting and polling stations. Other sports league franchises have also contributed to increasing secure access to voting.
Voters vote at The Forum arena in Inglewood, California.
Voting booths are installed at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida.

I hope eternal spring

The vaccines released for emergency use authorization in December by the Food and Drug Administration gave the nation a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

The stadiums that aided Covid-19’s previous food bank, testing and voting efforts were well placed for the next phase of pandemic relief.
On Friday, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles became a vaccine distribution center, soon capable of inoculating 12,000 people a day, according to authorities.
Medical workers in their cars await vaccinations from Covid-19 in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium. On Friday, the stadium started its new role as a vaccination hub.
Rescuers and health workers will be the first to receive vaccines at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Mayor Eric Garcetti referred to it as the “biggest vaccination site in the country”, asking eligible residents to get the vaccine. Other stadium programs are underway.

David Ortiz, public information officer for the City of Los Angeles Fire Department, told Paul Vercammen of CNN that working with the Dodgers and using their stadium is a boon to the county’s vaccination efforts.

“Three hundred and sixty-five acres of prime properties in downtown Los Angeles, available to use to help and care for people. We couldn’t have done it without them, ”said Ortiz.

CNN’s Paul Vercammen, Tami Luhby and Sheila Sarmiento contributed to this report.

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