Comerica Park will be able to host up to 8,200 Tigers fan on the baseball team's home opener on April 1 under a revised public health order for outdoor stadium capacities issued Friday by state health department.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel's revised public health order for cases sets outdoor stadium capacity at 20 percent.
For the 41,083-seat Comerica Park, that amounts to 8,200 seats that could be available for Tigers fans to fill on Opening Day against the Cleveland Indians.
Under previous orders from health officials, just 1,000 fans would have been allowed inside.
Fans will be required to take a "Gameday Wellness" survey within 24 hours of entering the gate, the Tigers said in a news release. Facemasks will be required at all times except when eating or drinking in assigned seats.
Seating will be in pods at least 6 feet away from other groups, and all transactions will be cashless. The team has outfitted the stadium with touchless hand sanitizer dispensers and physical distance decals throughout the concourse.
"Tigers baseball is back, and we couldn't be more excited to begin welcoming our great fans to Comerica Park again," Chris Granger, group president of sports and entertainment at Ilitch Holdings Inc., said in the release. "Safety is our top priority, and we have developed and invested in a plan that allows us to confidently provide fans a safe and entertaining experience. We've missed our fans greatly and can't wait to celebrate the start of the season with them, when the first pitch is thrown on Opening Day in Detroit."
Single-game tickets will go on sale March 25. Season ticket holders will have the first crack at buying seats for Opening Day.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration is boosting capacity for outdoor stadiums amid four consecutive weeks of growth in new cases of COVID-19.
The seven-day average number of new COVID-19 cases has doubled in the past three weeks to 2,149 on Thursday. Hospitalizations for patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 (1,106) are up 55 percent since hitting a low point of 714 COVID patients in Michigan hospitals just three weeks ago on Feb. 26, state data show.
"We could potentially be at the beginning of another surge in Michigan depending on how this plays out," said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state's chief medical executive.
State health officials blame a recent rise in new cases of COVID-19, in part, on high school sports teams, clubs and recreational sports. While case rates are rising among all age groups, the 10- to 19-year-old age group has seen the largest increase, Khaldun said.
"Last week, for the first time since we started tracking outbreaks, those in K-12 (school) settings exceeded the number (of outbreaks) in long-term care facilities," Khaldun said.
While children are less likely to get severely ill from COVID-19, Khaldun said, they can still pass along the virus to adults in their household or contract multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which can cause long-term organ damage in youth.
Starting April 2, all high school athletes and sports clubs in Michigan will be required to get rapid tests in order to participate in practices and games.
"It's a way we'll be able to identify cases as quickly as possible and not have more outbreaks amongst our sports teams," Khaldun said at a Friday news conference with Whitmer.
Despite a resurgence of the virus spreading in K-12 school and sports settings, Whitmer has resisted halting high school sports again. She faced immense backlash this winter over extending a ban on winter indoor contact sports when COVID cases were at a four-month low point.
"At this point in time, we're not annoucing any restrictions," Whitmer said Friday. "We don't have plans to do that at this juncture."
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State increases Comerica Park capacity to 8200 for Tigers' Opening Day - Crain's Detroit Business
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