TULSA — Officials with the City of Tulsa, Tulsa County and the Tulsa Health Department held a coronavirus update today.
Dr. Dart with the Tulsa Health Departments says THD is monitoring trends as reflected to compare to Trump guidelines. He urged businesses who open to require masks. Also, the CDC still wants people to wear masks in public.
Social distancing and shelter-in-place was not designed to stop coronavirus, but to flatten the curve to help healthcare respond to patients without overload, Dr. Dart continued.
As things begin to gradually reopen, we still have a responsibility to each other to take precautions, working on guidelines for places as they re-open, working to ID people with positive results and contact anyone in contact with them and to keep protecting people by contact tracing.
"This virus will continue to be here, it's not going away," says Dr. Dart. "This is why social distancing and precautions are important."
Dr. Dart says the community should remain diligent, or the gains we made in April will be for naught. A plateau can be seen in the curve, which shows your actions are making an impact, continued Dr. Dart.
Bynum says six weeks ago tomorrow we initiated a ban on large events, shortly after that we closed bars and restaurants, four weeks ago we initiate shelter in place, we saved lives by practicing social distancing, slowing the spread of the coronavirus and helped the healthcare systems prepare for the disease.
Our hospitals have the proper supply of equipment and they have seen a decrease in hospitalized patients. The death rate per capita remains low because of our early action, Bynum continued.
Bynum addressed that President Trump announced a framework for communities to engage economies and Gov. Stitt announced the plan for OK in similar way.
The White House recommends 14 days of declining tests before starting Phase 1, and while the State says we are there, the Tulsa Health Department says Tulsa County has not met the declining test.
Bynum added that our testing is trending upward and to follow national recommendations we would have to wait two weeks, but we don't live in a bubble.
Although local health experts say Tulsa will keep going up, Bynum says we can't wait for those to go down, since everyone else is going to be out and about within the state.
Bynum says, "I cannot ask Tulsans to keep doing this in pursuit of a now impossible goal. After discussions with leaders of each health leader in our area, they are all confident to move forward. Our goal is to continue managing risk as best we can, while helping Tulsans go back to work safely."
Mayor G. T. Bynum announced that the safer at home order ends in Tulsa on April 30.
According to a City of Tulsa press release, "Effective May 1, Mayor Bynum will issue a new order that will mirror both the federal and state guidelines for Phase One rollbacks. Tulsa’s shelter in place policy will discontinue at that time, the state’s guidelines for industry will be in place, and social gatherings of more than 10 people will be prohibited in accordance with federal recommendations."
The City of Tulsa say city golf course along with tennis facilities will reopen on May 1, however, Tulsa Parks facilities, recreation facilities and playgrounds will remain closed on May 1.
Tulsa County Sheriff Office says the dispatcher who tested positive recovered and is back to work. However, a clerk in the jail tested positive and she worked with Chaplain as Clerk, and had limited access to the inmate population.
At this time, Sheriff Regalado says they are adding mental health services for inmates while they quarantine.
For more information on what you can and cannot do during a safer at home order, click here.
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