BREAKING NEWS – Chicago, Illinois – Taxpayers spent nearly $66 million fashioning McCormick Place into an emergency coronavirus hospital with 2,750 beds this past spring amid fears that COVID-19 patients would overwhelm hospitals in the Chicago area.
Those fears turned out to be unfounded. Just 38 patients were transferred to the sprawling convention center — meaning taxpayers’ cost for the makeshift hospital turned out to be more than $1.7 million per patient.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot explained that her decision to initiate the project with the federal government and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority was an important “insurance policy” at a time of “immense emergency. She then added, “This facility will not got to waste because in this city, I am confident we can fill the beds after every three day weekend, with patients that have gunshot wounds.”