Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt Tests Positive for Wuhan Coronavirus
Didn’t take press long to connect the infection to Trump’s Tulsa rally, while ignoring the state’s flat, flat curve and the “surge” in recoveries!
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced he received positive test results for COVID-19.
“I personally get tested periodically throughout this whole thing,” Stitt said. “I got tested yesterday for COVID-19 and the results came back positive.” The governor was first tested for COVID-19 on June 18 ahead of an event at the White House.
Stitt said he is feeling fine, despite minor aches. He has not developed a fever. He plans to work from home and self-isolate from his family and others until the state’s top health official recommends otherwise.
First Lady Sarah Stitt and the Stitts’ six children tested negative for the virus, the governor said.
It didn’t take long for the press to tie Stitt’s infection to President Donald Trump’s recent Tulsa rally:
Stitt attended Trump’s controversial campaign rally in Tulsa on June 20. Health officials there said the rally “more than likely” contributed to a surge in coronavirus cases.
“The past two days we’ve had almost 500 cases, and we know we had several large events a little over two weeks ago, which is about right,” Tulsa Health Department Executive Director Bruce Dart said on July 9. “So I guess we just connect the dots.”
At least eight Trump campaign staffers who attended the rally in Tulsa later tested positive for the coronavirus, according to CNN.
The coverage also connected the infection to Oklahoma’s robust reopening plan and reliance on personal choice:
…Stitt said he would be working from home until it was safe to ‘get back to normal’.
However he still refuses to issue a mandate that requires wearing a mask in public and just asks that people follow a business’ orders if they require face protection.
‘We respect people’s rights … to not wear a mask,’ Stitt said during Wednesday’s news conference, which was held virtually. ‘You just open up a big can of worms.’
He said it would be difficult because someone’s mask may slip down below their nose or they may not be able to wear an N95 mask.
‘A lot of businesses are requiring it, and that’s fine. I’m just hesitant to mandate something that I think is problematic to enforce,’ he said about face coverings.
‘I know that some businesses are mandating masks and that’s great. But you can’t pick and choose what freedoms you’re going to give people.
‘So if the businesses want to do it, if some local municipalities want to do it, that’s fine. But again, we also respect people’s rights to stay home if they want, to run their businesses, or to not wear a mask.
Right on cue, the Tulsa rally was followed with reports on case numbers showing the case totals…which, of course, can only go up.
With 1,075 new cases reported Wednesday, the Oklahoma State Department of Health says there have now been a total of 22,813 coronavirus cases confirmed in Oklahoma since the pandemic began.
This is a new single-day high for the state. The previous record was set with 993 new cases, reported by the state on July 14.
There were four new coronavirus-related deaths reported in Creek, Kay, Oklahoma, and Tulsa counties, bringing the state’s death toll to 432.
What most reports fail to leave out are facts such as the age of the four who succumbed to the infection, who were at the high-risk age of over 65.
The coverage also leaves out how truly flat Oklahoma’s curve really is, or the “surge” in the number of recoveries.
I wish Gov. Stitt and his state a speedy and robust recovery.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Water is wet
and MSM is Satanic…..
Any thing new under the sun?
The symptoms, the virus, its footprint, or the disease? Flattening the infection rate only delayed its progress.
that requires wearing a mask in public
If symptomatic there is one protocol to follow. If asymptomatic or undiagnosed there is another. Also, context (e.g. location, conditions, persistence) matters. Wash your hands, avoid touching transmission (e.g. mouth, nose, eyes, open wounds) interfaces, and limit your exposure to black holes (get in, get out, and wash your hands with soap).
Stay healthy, control stressors which weaken your body, and evaluate prophylactics to mitigate disease progression.
So, how many asymptomatic cases are there? In order to answer that question, a serum test has to be performed and that test has to produce evidence of COVID genetic material or fresh anti-bodies in the blood stream. How many such tests have been performed and how many produced positive results? The most common test being used is the nasalpharyngial swab test, with the throat swab running second. Both of these tests only show exposure, not necessarily infection. But, all positive results of these tests are being classified as COVID infections, And, to explain lack of symptoms in a huge number of these people, a blanket claim of asymptomatic infection is being made. Something which does not happen in any other infection disease.
It is all made-up to produce a political and social result. It has nothing to do with public health.
He said he is tested periodically
I would presume he’s been tested multiple times since a rally held 4 weeks ago
It would be interesting to find out how many people test positive in a regular old flu season.
One Trump rally is Apocalypse Right Now. Thousands of nut-to-butt screaming violent anarchists tearing down statues and lighting things on fire for weeks on end obviously causes no increase in Wuhan Coronavirus cases.
I do not believe the rioters and other protestors are getting tested….so asystomatic case, like the Gov. will not show. Many of us who are not “sick” may show positive test without ever “getting” the flu/illness! One person I know tested positive, but insisted on another test from a different health center…and second time a couple of days later…came back negative!
According to the state, https://coronavirus.health.ok.gov/articles/situation-update-covid-19-07162020
“In Wednesday’s press conference, interim Commissioner Lance Frye said based on the Governor’s symptoms and timing of his test, the Governor became contagious no earlier than Saturday. All points of contact have been notified and are following quarantine guidance.”
The press fails to mention that the Whirlpool plant in Tulsa was shut 6/12 due to multiple cases of C19, the various BLM protests in Tulsa and OKC for several weeks, the large Juneteenth rally in Tulsa on the 19th, and the counter protests at the Trump rally on the 20th.
Cases have been increasing for the age groups of 18-34 and 35-49. 14% of the cases are >65+, but the older age group accounts for 80% of the deaths.
There is a new weekly report (Covid Alert System) which graphs the cases by county and by date of symptom onset with a 7 day average. There is a similar graph for the state on the main web page. https://coronavirus.health.ok.gov/
So, while there has been a large increase in cases, it seems to be a lab reporting issue since a lot of the cases were in the early July range. There are a few labs that have a lot of tests not processed. But it seems that most labs are reporting within a day or two.
Cumulative cases by date reported is always going to go up. (barring test failures caught after the fact) A fair graph is active cases per million, or deaths per million (which is a lagging indicator).
Drives me nuts when the media blasts out their normal charts “Over X thousand cases!” Well, out of how many? (i.e. per capita) And how many of those cases are fully recovered? How many total Covid-only hospitalizations as a percentage of total hospital beds in the area? (another deceptive statistic when the media report X hospital beds being used and don’t say how many are for surgery or other non-Covid issues)
Yep, was just working my way down to suggest the same.
Leslie, please take note 🙂
Perhaps a logarithmic scale…
Yawn.
Testing positive means nothing. Is he infected (Maybe)? He’s not dead or in the hospital needing medical intervention (The two important stats).
But hey, if we can keep the hysteria going who knows what we can accomplish.
Odd that no one was concwened about Floyd knowing he was positive yet contined to associate with the public. Buting and usibg drugs and committing crimes.
Democrats hailed him as a hero…
George Floyd tested positive a few weeks before being stopped. He did nothing to protect himself or others spreading it wherever he went.
Yet the Democrats hailed him as a hero for his drug use and crimes????
Isn’t it amazing how Republicans who catch COVID today are subject to a hundred times the social acrimony of gays who caught AIDS in the ’80s and ’90s?