Having been an annual tradition in Maury County for more than 70 years, event organizers, county leaders and more were faced with a difficult challenge this year regarding the Maury County Fair.
Do they follow suit with Williamson County Fair and Heritage Foundation organizers in cancelling the in-person event in light of the coronavirus pandemic, or do they push through and adapt to the new circumstances?
Ultimately, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles and the fair’s organizers chose the latter.
And while the question of whether the Maury County Fair has operated so far in a safe manner will differ depending on who you ask, Dr. Bill Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, called photos of fair attendees gathered closely together by the hundreds “ghastly” and “appalling,” and condemned the fair’s organizers for their handling of the event.
“This is an example of exactly how not to run an activity such as this,” Schaffner said.
“I can assure you, that in addition to all these people who are attending this event, what you can't see is the COVID virus — it's in these pictures. I can give an absolute, 100% assurance that some of these people are infected.”
Fair attendees stand for the national anthem Thursday before the Monster Truck Rally.
What fair organizers have done to help prevent the spread of COVID-19
Leading up to the event, Maury County Fair organizers had shared that a bevy of new safety measures had been implemented as a means to help stop the spread of COVID-19, including things like limiting ride capacity, sanitizing rides before each use, and the use of directional arrows on the ground to direct and control foot traffic.
Additionally, fair workers have been trained on COVID-19 and “how to interact with the public,” with those handling food wearing masks and gloves at all times.
Guests enter Midway, the Maury County Fair's main area for rides and games.
Eddie Kerr, the Maury County Fair board chairman, told the Home Page that more than $2,500 had been spent on hand sanitizer alone, which had been strategically placed all over the fairgrounds for public use. Kerr also said that the fair had purchased an additional $2,000 ticket booth as a means to reduce large swaths of people from gathering near the entrance.
When asked about the large crowds of people gathered at venues like the Big Arena, however, Kerr said that it was not the responsibility of the fair to enforce things like social distancing.
Kerr said that the Big Arena saw its highest attendance Thursday in more than eight years.
“We’re not the social distancing police”
“We leave it up to everyone in what they feel comfortable with — if they're not worried about it, I can't be worried about it, and I'm not going to mandate masks and stuff like that,” Kerr said.
“I can encourage [social distancing], but I'm not going to go through and separate the bleachers and stuff like that. We had a long talk with our mayor — he has a level head on his shoulders — and he said you all are doing everything that I would do and that you need to do to try to keep people safe.”
Fans cheer as the Monster Truck Rally begins.
Kerr also had his own criticisms of the handling of the coronavirus pandemic in general.
“Everybody has their own opinion about this... so-called pandemic,” Kerr said.
“In my opinion — and this is just my opinion — it's not a pandemic, it's an overrated flu. Yes, people do get sick, but people die of heart attacks every day, or cancer, or stuff like that.”
How the fair has gone so far
Having kicked off on Tuesday, the fair has seen a huge increase in attendees when compared to last year by Kerr’s estimates.
Kerr said that while Tuesday still saw a “really good crowd considering it rained an inch,” Wednesday and Thursday turnouts were roughly double that of last year. With an estimated 20-25 percent increase in turnout during the first three days, Kerr said they estimate a total turnout of 20,000 people, with last year’s turnout being between 15,000 and 16,000.
On July 7, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles said that he would not impose a mask mandate, and the Maury County Fair organizers appear to have followed suit, with no such mask mandate in place for the event. And with no such mandate in place, the vast majority of attendees flocked to the fair without masks.
Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles walks in the center of the Big Arena ahead of the Monster Truck Rally event.
While hand sanitizing stations were seen setup throughout the fairgrounds, it was one venue in particular that drew, by far, the largest gathering of people — the Big Arena, which on Thursday, saw a Pro Monster Truck rally.
It was photos of this event and its well over a thousand attendees that drew ire from Dr. Schaffner, who pointed to situations like these as reasons for the pandemic’s perseverance.
“And we wonder why it is we can't control this virus”
“There is no public health official in the country that would endorse this kind of gathering in the current environment,” Schaffner said.
Schaffner pointed to other large venues as more positive examples as to how to reopen safely amid the coronavirus pandemic, and explained how with a few tweaks, the fair could operate more safely.
“There are major sports venues that are petitioning their local governments across the country to open — the first thing they do is reduce the number of people permitted into the venue, and they reduce it down to levels of about 20-25 percent of what's normal,” Schaffner said.
“Number two, they block out whole sections of seats so that people can only sit six feet apart. They require everyone to wear a mask, as well as doing those other things.”
“This is pretending we're back at the old normal — we're not. We're in a new normal, and that seems not to have been accepted by either the organizers or the attendees... and we wonder why it is we can't control this virus.”
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