Mayor counsels vigilance as father fights COVID-19
Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt said Thursday that his father was recovering after spending 11 days in intensive care at the OU Medical Center battling COVID-19.
Holt discussed his father's illness during his first update in six weeks on the local pandemic response.
The mayor said Oklahoma City had fared better than all but a few large U. S. metro areas in key metrics, including cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
But while trends have improved, coronavirus continues to spread at rates far in excess of those seen in the first months of the pandemic, and continued precautions are a must, he said.
Holt said his father, Stroud Holt, 81, contracted COVID-19 in mid- January. Stroud Holt lives in southeast Oklahoma and is retired from Putnam City schools, where he taught for three decades.
“We have kept our distance and did not see him on Thanksgiving or Christmas,” the mayor said.
He said his father's symptoms “were significant and we ultimately brought him to Oklahoma City.”
“On Tuesday, he was released to our care,” Holt said. “He is still physically weak but his progress has been steady since entering ICU.
“We are very hopeful, but there were touch- and- go moments,” he said, “and the experience has certainly been a reminder of the seriousness of this virus.”
Holt called his father's care excellent and said the quality of Oklahoma City's health care system had been a “major contributor” to relatively good outcomes locally when compared to the nation as a whole.
His family's experience,
Holt said, also has “been a reminder that the arrival of the vaccine in December has still not fundamentally altered our situation.”
“If you haven't had the vaccine, and most people haven't, you can still catch this virus and you can still get sick and you can still die,” he said. “That's not going to change for several months.”
The Oklahoma City metro area has recorded 73 deaths per 100,000 residents, Holt said, about half the national rate.
New daily cases and hospitalizations are down 40% to 45% from their highs just a few weeks ago.
Of the 37 cities over 500,000 in population, only six — Charlotte, Portland, Austin, Seattle, Columbus and San Francisco — have lower death rates than Oklahoma City, he said.
Holt said the numbers “are still pretty high compared to where they were in the spring and summer.”
“Overall, we've done a good job relative to the rest of the state and country, but every life lost is too many,” he said.
“Vaccinations are the answer, but that will take a few more months,” he said. “In the meantime, we must continue to be careful. Don't catch this virus when the end is so close.”