After over a year fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, Oklahoma health leaders gathered on a gloomy Tuesday outside the University of Oklahoma Medical Center with an urgent message — “the virus is far from defeated.”
The rapid increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations statewide precipitated by the delta variant has once again resulted in widespread hospital bed and staffing shortages from the Oklahoma City metro to rural facilities, said OU Health Senior Vice President of Marketing and External Relations Jennifer Schultz.
Tuesday’s press conference was held in the same location and shared much of the same content as a November 2020 media event attended by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and state health officials. During the conference, Oklahoma State Department of Health Commission Dr. Lance Frye warned against rising infections and a lack of available ICU beds.
OU Chief COVID-19 Officer Dr. Dale Bratzler and several other medical professionals mirrored that message Tuesday. Unlike the November event however, several vaccines are now available to stymie the spread of COVID-19, and the now-preventable rise in hospitalizations proved to be frustrating to some speakers.
Current data on new cases and hospitalizations paint a discouraging picture, Bratzler said, with trends climbing towards numbers seen much earlier in the pandemic, before vaccine doses were available. The current 7-day average of new infections is 2,213, roughly equal to the average in November 2020.
“It seems sad we’re here today having another press conference,” Bratzler said.
While Oklahoma’s 7-day average of new cases peaked at around 4,000, Bratzler said the current number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is climbing more quickly toward the previous peak of about 2,000 statewide.
“Right now we’re just under 1,400 people in the hospital with COVID-19, which puts us at around 70 percent (of the previous peak),” Bratzler said. “A larger number of people being diagnosed are ending up in the hospital … The virus we dealt with last year has mutated. We saw the delta variant devastate the country of India. It is at least twice as contagious as the original variant, and spreads very easily from person-to-person.”
The easier-spread delta variant is especially dangerous for unvaccinated Oklahomans, Bratzler said. OSDH data reported 93% of current COVID-19 hospitalizations are unvaccinated patients. As of Aug. 11, the OSDH reported less than 50% of the state was fully vaccinated.
Vaccination rates among young people are also a cause for concern as classes return for fall. Only “about one-third” of the age group has received “at least one dose” of the vaccine, Bratzler said.
As over 25,000 students return to OU-Norman for in-person instruction and OU welcomes its largest freshman class in history, the university’s COVID-19 dashboard has not been updated since Aug. 4. Free COVID-19 tests are also no longer available to OU students.
An OU spokesperson wrote in a Tuesday afternoon email the university is developing a new COVID-19 dashboard that "better aligns" with Oklahoma's reporting and includes data from OU's Healthy Together app. The new dashboard will be released later this week and will be updated weekly.
“We have a lot of young, vulnerable people coming into classrooms across the state,” Bratzler said.
Professors have little control over masking or COVID-19 protocols in their classrooms, however. The university has only “strongly encouraged” masking on campus, despite Bratzler noting many individuals carrying COVID-19 could likely be asymptomatic or display minimal symptoms, particularly if they are fully vaccinated.
While instructors can choose to hold office hours over Zoom or ask that students not approach them after class, according to an email to faculty in the Gallogly College of Engineering, they may not require masks in class.
“If you are concerned about masking, you should work with your school to have masks available for students to use when they enter the classroom,” the email read. “You can include language that encourages masking and vaccination (following the OU guidance) in your syllabus and verbally. You must be sure that you do not use any language that makes it sound mandatory nor penalize or shame students for not masking.”
OU has cited state legislation including Senate Bill 658 and Stitt’s Executive Order 2021-16 as barriers to mandating masks on campus similarly to the past two semesters. Some legal experts and legislators said these laws may not be ironclad in disallowing masks at universities however.
In Arkansas, a similar law was blocked by a judge, and Indiana University’s decision to implement a vaccine mandate was backed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We can’t continue to think of this as a political left versus right issue … This thinking does not solve the problem. Instead, it’s resulted in a sense of complacency in our communities while more and more people die,” said Dr. Bahar Malakouti, neurohospitalist and stroke medical director at Mercy Hospital Oklahoma City. “We are tired of living through this nightmare of almost two years. We are tired of masks, and isolations, and quarantine, and constantly asking if we’re making the right decision in weighing our physical health and our mental health.”
Complacency is part of what has led Oklahoma back to COVID-19 spread the speakers described as “dire,” Bratzler said.
“We let our guard down. We were down to 99 cases a day in early June,” Braztler said. “(But then) we opened up, we relaxed our mask mandates in communities around the state, people didn’t see getting vaccinated as a priority anymore.”
Bratzler urged Oklahomans to consider getting vaccinated a part of their “civic duty” to protect others across the country.
“I’ve said before that my father was infantry during World War Two, about as patriotic as you can get,” Bratzler said. “I remember standing in line and holding his hand as an elementary student to chew up a sugar cube with the Polio vaccine, and we’ve seen what the Polio vaccine has done for our community … we’ve destroyed the disease and I’m not aware of any Polio cases in the United States in many years.”
Chief Medical Officer for INTEGRIS Health Dr. Julie Watson, said she and all her colleagues are “exhausted.” She encouraged everyone to receive the vaccine as soon as possible and to research past widespread misinformation regarding its safety.
“I want this pandemic to be over for my children, family, friends and the hundreds of patients we care for every day. I want life to return to normal,” Watson said. “COVID-19 vaccines were developed rapidly, but they were based on 30 years of preparation. This family of viruses has been around for a very long time, and scientists have been studying them and trying to develop vaccines for decades, long before this one was identified. No trial phases were skipped. The speed came from having years of preparation.”
With all major Oklahoma City hospital systems feeling the strain of limited bed space and staffing, and Oklahomans regularly facing extended wait periods for emergency care due to COVID-19 patient intake, frontline health professionals pleaded with the public to do their part in eliminating the virus.
“We are seeing critical COVID patients in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s this time around with a lot of life left to live — they are scared,” said Reagan Wickwire, a COVID-19 ICU nurse at SSM Health St. Anthony. “Please fight with us instead of fighting against us. We don’t want your final words with your (family) to be over a FaceTime call."
This article was updated at 1:48 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 17, to include information on the university's new COVID-19 dashboard.
