OKLAHOMA CITY – Republican Governor Kevin Stitt announced that he has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Stitt made the announcement Wednesday during a Zoom press conference. He is the first governor in the United States to test positive for the coronavirus.
The governor said he hadn’t shown any symptoms of the disease. He is now isolating himself from his family, he said.
“I want to be transparent. I’m taking precautions and I’ll be working from home,”
Stitt said. “It feels like an achy cold, but I feel fine.”
Stitt said he was tested on Tuesday and received his test results about 12:30 p.m., the same day. He said his wife and children were also tested and those tests were negative.
The governor said he doesn’t believe he became infected during the rally for President Donald Trump last month in Tulsa.
Secretary Blayne Arthur was at Tuesday’s Office of the Land Commission meeting with Gov. Stitt. A spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry referred all COVID-19 related inquiries to the governor’s office. Charlie Hannema, Stitt’s Chief of Communications, confirmed that Secretary Arthur was notified prior to Wednesday’s press conference about her exposure and is working remotely in the interim.
State Health Commissioner Col. Lance Frye said the Trump Rally occurred too far in the past to infect the governor. “The president’s rally was too long ago,” Frye said. “It wasn’t that.”
Stitt, Frye said, could have become infected anytime during the past two weeks.
The governor, who has been seen throughout the state not wearing a mask, is now one of the 22,813 Oklahomans infected with the disease.
This spring – just as officials were moving limit access to bars and restaurant because of the COVID-19 pandemic – Stitt was criticized following release of a photo of the governor and two of his children was posted on social media showing the trio having dinner at an Oklahoma City restaurant.
Stitt has also been criticized by several groups recently for refusing to reinstate some quarantine measures and for refusing to require Oklahomans to wear masks, as the number of those testing positive for COVID-19 has escalated.
Stitt said Oklahomans will have to continue to live with the coronavirus for the next two years. Oklahomans, he said, have to adjust to a new normal, adding that wearing a mask was a personal choice.
“We need to take the virus very seriously,” he said. “I talk all the time about the new norm. We know it’s here in Oklahoma and it’s not going away.”
Records from the Oklahoma State Department of Health show that, as of Wednesday, another 1,075 new infections of the coronavirus and four additional deaths caused by the disease were reported. Additionally, a total of 432 deaths and 2,165 hospitalizations have been recorded in Oklahoma.
In the United States, 136,699 have died from COVID-19 while 3,448,625 have reported as testing positive for the disease.