Tulsa officials sounded alarms before rally, emails show
TULSA—President Donald Trump' s campaign rally in Tulsa engendered concern among some local public officials that it would be a vi r us super- spreader event or flash point for riots, according to emails received by the Tulsa Health Department.
Notably, a member of t he Tulsa City- County Board of Health wrote on his concerns that “some of our most prominent elected officials are intentionally misinforming the public about what the data say about the current surge in cases.”
Columbia University's Brown Institute for Media Innovation requested email sand underlying attachments from correspondence involving Dr. Bruce Dart, Tulsa health department's executive director, through most of June. The request is part of its Documenting COVID19 project.
There were about 5 0 emails — a few from public officials — opposing or expressing concern about Trump's campaign rally taking place June 20 in Tulsa during a local surge in cases amid a global pandemic. There were only a handful of emails either in support of the rally or against Dart for his recommendation that elected officials postpone the rally until a safer time.
Four days beforehand, Tulsa City-County Board of Health member Mike St out responded to an email from a concerned local nurse practitioner that the board can't supersede state or federal law regarding the re-opening of the community.
“Unfortunately, it appears our local and statewide elected officials are choosing to move forward with the event despite what the data and evidence are showing, and despite the strong reservations expressed by public health experts,” Stout wrote.
“It's very concerning to me that some of our most prominent elected officials are intentionally misinforming the public about what the data say about the current surge in cases, making it seem that the surge is a result of increased testing capacity, despite the fact that the number of tests we've been administering statewide have plateaued or even declined in recent weeks, as the percentage of positive COVID19 diagnoses has rapidly increased from just under 4% to around 14% or 15%.”
While not specifical ly named in Stout' s email, only a day earlier Gov. Kevin Stitt attributed Tulsa County' s and Oklahoma's surging COVID- 1 9 numbers to testing more asymptomatic people.
However, state data contradicted Stitt's assertion in multiple ways.
Overall tests performed the weeks of June 8 (28,151), June 1 (29,615) and May 25 (26,274) were much less than the weeks of May 18 ( 39,580) and May 11 (33,703). The state pushed to test all residents and staff of long-term care and nursing home facilities in May.
Additionally, the positivity rate of tests was rising. The weekly rate rose from 1.84% to 2.59% to 2.91% the weeks of May 18, May 25 and June 1, respectively. Then the positivity rate doubled to 5.82% the week of June 8.
“It is in the United States. It is in Oklahoma,” Stitt said of COVID- 19 on June 15. “And we can't let it dictate our lives. We have to go about our lives, but we are going to do it with every precaution possible.”