Tamica Jean-Charles/Assistant Entertainment Director
Just twenty minutes before the annual Youth Fair at Tamiami Park was about to begin, the fair and exposition center had to close its doors due to the coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak.
The lot, once filled with exuberant rides and vendors, is now in the midst of transforming into a 250-bed field hospital. The last of the rides were removed from the premises last night, around the same time workers from Emergency Disaster Services arrived.
The field hospital is scheduled to be completed by Thursday, Friday morning at the latest, according to President of The Youth Fair Eddie Cora.
“[The hospital] is a just in case scenario, they’re putting this together, getting it ready in the case,” said Cora.
Miami-Dade County was already in talks with the fair to potentially use the site for a mobile hospital days before ordering the construction on Sunday night. The fairground is equipped with the infrastructure–built-in electric and sewage systems alongside its location within the county–needed for the field hospital.
“The idea for a mobile hospital is to be expandable, the fairgrounds are large enough and all the facilities are in one place,” said Cora. “There’s ample space to expand this to another four or five if necessary.
The around 60,000 square-foot main tent, originally built for fair purposes, will be split in half to host 250 isolated beds and space for doctors and nurses to work. The site will also include a field kitchen and laundry alongside the hospital, which are all constructed by the Kentucky-based emergency services team.
Whether or not the hospital will be in use once construction has been completed remains up in the air. Cora says the county’s emergency management team will make that call as more cases begin to surface.
“Hopefully the 250 beds here never get used, but they’re ready to go,” said Cora.
The Miami-Dade Emergency Management team was unavailable for comment.
A HARD HIT
This is the first time the Youth Fair has been canceled in over six decades. The annual fair served as the organization’s largest, and highest-grossing, fundraising event, making the cancellation a “significant” blow.
Cora hopes to plan a community event once the pandemic has calmed.
“It’s hard to plan a mass gathering in a time where we’re trying to avoid mass gatherings,” said Cora. “We’re still playing it by year, but it looks like it’s going to be next year’s fair [next March].”
The fair also had to cancel any upcoming events up until May, but Cora says that could change at any time.
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