OKLAHOMA CITY – A series of federal reports prepared for the White House – and kept under wraps by Republican Governor Kevin Stitt until August 21 – paint an increasingly dire picture of Oklahoma’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The studies, prepared for the Trump administration and issued weekly beginning June 29, show that federal officials became more concerned about efforts to contain the coronavirus in the Sooner State.
The reports had been kept from the public by Stitt’s office until their existence was revealed in July by the Center for Public Integrity. The reports contain policy suggestions for state and local governments as well as ideas on how to inform residents about the policies, known as messaging suggestions.
Several Oklahoma municipal officials said they were unaware the reports existed.
“Is there a frustration that there’s information out there about Tulsa that we’re finding out by accident? Yes,” Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum told Public Radio Tulsa.
Following the story of the reports’ existence, Gov. Stitt told media representatives on Aug. 21 his office would post the studies on the coronavirus website operated by the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
Oklahoma’s first report, dated June 29, noted the state had “seen an increase in cases and stability in test positivity over the past week.”
The report listed the three counties with the highest number of cases: Tulsa County, Oklahoma County and McCurtain County.
At that time, federal officials also made five recommendations:
• Immediately institute routine weekly testing of all workers in assisted living and long-term care facilities and require masks and social distancing for all visitors.
• Continue the scale-up of testing, moving to community led neighborhood testing and working with local community groups to increase household testing of multi-generational homes with clear guidance on test positive isolations and mask use.
• Ensure public use of masks in all current and evolving hot spots.
• Consider closing bars in hot- spot counties to limit spread and encourage individuals who have participated in protests and large social gatherings to get tested.
• Tribal nations: Continue to promote social distancing and masking measures and continue enhanced testing activities. Monitor testing data to identify additional sites of increased transmission and focus public health resources on them. Employ culturally appropriate public health messaging for your citizens.
One week later, in the report dated July 5, Oklahoma was listed in the yellow zone for community transmission because its case rate “was steady in the past week after a previous rapid rise and test positivity rate between 5 percent and 10 percent.”
The report reiterated that state officials should “immediately institute routine weekly testing of all workers in assisted living and long-term care facilities and require masks and social distancing for all visitors.”
In addition, the report again recommended the continued scale-up of testing, called on state officials to encourage public use of masks in all current and evolving hot spots especially Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and to ask officials to “consider closing or limiting occupan- cy/hours in bars in hot-spot counties to limit spread; encourage individuals that have participated in protests and large social gatherings to get tested.”
Tribal nations also were encouraged to continue “promotion of social distancing and masking measures and continued enhanced testing activities.”
But just one week later, on July 14, the White House report listed Oklahoma in the red zone and indicated that the federal government had “deployed staff as assets to support the state response.”
According to the report seven federal employees were deployed to assist Oklahoma in leadership, administrative, operations and logistics activities from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The mid-July report also made 13 recommendations, stating that Oklahoma City and Tulsa had “significantly increased burdens” and “urgent attention to these areas” (Tulsa and Oklahoma City).
In addition, the report once more urged state officials to continue weekly testing of all workers in assisted living and long-term care facilities and require masks and social distancing for all visitors.
The report also called for mandated public use of masks in all current and evolving hot spots and urged officials to close bars and gyms in hot spot counties.
Other recommendations included:
• Move to outdoor dining and limit indoor dining to less than 25 percent; decrease gathering limits to 10.
• Encourage individuals who have participated in large social gatherings to get tested.
• Increase messaging of the risk of serious disease in all age groups with pre-existing medical conditions, including obesity, hypertension and diabetes mellitus.
• Continue the scale-up of testing, moving to community-led neighborhood testing and pooled household testing in the red zone metro areas.
• Test households in one container with rapid turn around testing. For households that test positive, isolate and conduct follow-up individual tests.
• Work with local communities to provide clear guidance for households that test positive, including individual isolation.
• Continue to enhance contact tracing and ensure the ability of cases and contacts to quarantine or isolate safely. Monitor testing data to identify additional sites of increased transmission and focus public health resources on them.
• Expand testing capacity in public health labs, adding shifts and weekend shifts to decrease turnaround times. Institute 2:1 pooling of test specimens.
By July 19, the White House reported that Oklahoma remained in the red zone for cases and the yellow zone for positivity tests. The White House noted that six federal staff members and two members of the CDC staff had been deployed to help support the state’s response.
In addition, the recommendations to the state grew increasingly urgent, with calls to close establishments where social distancing and mask use could not occur, and mandate the use of masks in yellow and red zones.
Federal officials also urged Gov. Stitt’s office to increase its messaging “of the risk of serious disease in all age groups with pre-existing medical conditions.”
By the end of July, the COVID-19 report – issued July 26 – said more counties in the state were in the red zone and said that “mask mandates must be implemented in yellow and red zones.”
Federal officials yet again called on the state to enhance contact tracing and ensure the ability of cases and contacts to quarantine or isolate safely. The feds reiterated for the expansion of testing capacity in public health labs, adding shifts and weekend shifts to reduce turnaround times.
On Aug. 2, the White House urged state officials to put in mask requirements statewide and to “work with local communities to ensure high usage rages and identify compliance with local regulations.”
The report called on state officials to “conduct on-site inspections to ensure COVID-19 safety guidance and considerations are being implemented” in nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
The Aug. 2 report also recommended that “all universities with RNA detection platforms to use this equipment to expand surveillance testing for schools (K-12, community colleges) and university students.”
One week later, the White House called on the governor’s office to close establishments where social distancing and mask use cannot occur, such as bars, nightclubs, and entertainment venues and to limit the size of social gatherings to 10 or fewer people in red zones (such as Oklahoma County) and to limit the size of social gatherings in yellow zones to 25 or fewer people.
That report, issued Aug. 9, said the state should have mandatory inspection surveys in nursing homes with three or more cases of COVID-19 in the last three weeks and should provide immediate support for corrective action to ensure COVID-19 safety guidance and considerations are being implemented.
On Aug. 16, the White House noted Oklahoma was ranked 15th in the nation for most new cases per 100,000 population and 11th for high- est test positivity. The report also indicated the government had deployed 36 federal staffers to support medical activities from the Veterans Administration.
That report again called for a statewide mask mandate “to decrease community transmission” and said, “bars must be closed, and indoor dining must be restricted in yellow and red zone counties and metro areas.”
The report called on the state to fully staff and run its health lab around the clock and utilize all platforms.
With the state’s COVID-19 infection rate increasing, the White House – for the third time – urged Gov. Stitt to implement a mask mandate statewide.
Outlined in the Aug. 23 report, federal officials urged state leaders to take a much stronger role in identifying cases of the virus.
“Identify universities with RNA detection platforms; consider efforts to use this equipment to expand surveillance testing for university students and for schools, especially institutions of higher education without such capacity, such as community colleges and students arriv- ing on campus and routinely thereafter with contact tracing,” the report said.
Federal officials also called on the state to support a uniform case reporting process for institutions of higher education and the publication of this data “on public facing dashboards, including on the state dashboard.”
State officials, the report said, should “work closely with university leadership, Greek organizations, sports teams, and student body leaders to establish appropriate behavior during COVID-19 with known repercussions if students do not comply.”
Five days later, on Aug. 28, Stitt’s office issued a media statement saying the governor had issued his fourth amended executive order extending the state of emergency related to the pandemic.
“Since Fourth Amended Executive Order 2020-20 will still be in effect within 45 days of the November 3 general election, this will trigger the provisions provided under Senate Bill 210 allowing absentee voters to verify their identity by attaching a copy of an approved identification document to their affidavit envelope instead of having their signature notarized or witnessed by two people,” the governor’s statement said.