© 2024 KOSU
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

White House Report Issues New Recommendations For Oklahoma College Towns

Chelsea Stanfield / KOSU
Students at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla. wear masks indoors.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force released its most recent report on Oklahoma this week and it offers new advice to officials in university towns.

Since late June, White House officials have compiled coronavirus data and issued reports for states, sending them to the governor. Under pressure, Gov. Kevin Stitt recently starting making those reports public.

This week’s report says Oklahoma has the 13th highest new case count in the country, and it has the 9th highest positivity rate. But, it does say that new cases and testing positivity have remained stable.

Community transmission continues to be high in rural and urban counties across Oklahoma, and the report notes increasing transmission in major university towns.

The White House document offers several recommendations to tackle transmission in college towns, including testing all students who return to campus and maintaining routine surveillance testing throughout the semester. It advises colleges to create care and quarantine centers to prevent students from returning to multi-generational homes.

It also advises requiring universities with the necessary technology to assist K-12 schools with their testing efforts.

The report also recommends implementing mask mandates across the state and the closure of bars, a hotspot for COVID-19 transmission.

Stitt and Interim Commissioner of Health Lance Frye on Tuesday warned against statewide mask mandates, saying that requiring them in areas with low incidence of the virus would be unreasonable.

Catherine Sweeney was StateImpact Oklahoma's health reporter from 2020 to 2023.
KOSU is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.
Related Content