Detroit Auto Show Got Dumped To Treat 39 Patients At TCF Center

As the COVID-19 virus outbreak came to light in March, Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer began scrambling to announce Executive Orders to close schools, businesses, restrict medical care, and pretty much every aspect of life in the state. The Governor, by the way, has gone one to issue 80 Executive Orders since the outbreak started.

One of the big business-related impacts was to shut down the pending Detroit Auto Show at the old Cobo Hall, now the TCF Center, in downtown Detroit. The show was set for June. It features multi-million dollar automotive displays every year. It’s a big deal.  The show typically brings tens of millions of dollars to the Detroit area, and the state’s economy, every year.  But the Governor and state health experts decided the TCF Center was more valuable as a field hospital for the thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of predicted virus patients predicted to overwhelm Michigan’s medical system. So the show got the boot to make way for a makeshift one thousand bed care facility at the center and all that goes with that.

The big emergency TCF Center field hospital discharged its last virus patient about a week ago. It officially, and quietly, was closed over the weekend.  Detroit's mayor admits at most, maybe 20 patients were there at any one time. A total of 39  patients were treated there while it was open.