CenturyLink Field has been home to some incredible moments with Seattle’s sports fans helping it become the literal definition of home-field advantage. Now, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the home of the Seattle Seahawks will be used as a field hospital to help provide relief to area hospitals.
The U.S. Army will use CenturyLink Field to handle non-COVID cases, a move to reduce the stress felt by Seattle-based hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, 300 soldiers from Colorado’s 627th Army Hospital in Fort Carson are being deployed to work at the field hospital, which will provide at least 150 hospital beds for non-COVID patients.
The decision comes just weeks after a stadium vendor at CenturyLink Field tested positive for COVID-19. The vendor last worked at the stadium during the XFL’s Seattle Dragons game on Feb. 22. The stadium was thoroughly cleaned after the positive test and no games have been played there since.
Other stadiums around the country could likely come under consideration to be used as field hospitals. Given the NFL season is over and months away from returning, the large fields and open spacing could offer the space that many hospitals in major cities are quickly running out of.
According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 100,000 people in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19. The U.S. became the first country with 100,000-plus confirmed cases of the virus.