The disease’s toll on Oklahoma’s elderly has been staggering. Oklahomans age 65 and older make up nearly 80 percent of deaths in the state, the data show.
Gov. Kevin Stitt on Friday named Col. Lance Frye as the Oklahoma State Department of Health’s interim commissioner, replacing Gary Cox who announced his resignation earlier this month.
This is what it looks like when one of the hungriest states in the nation experiences an economic crisis of historic proportions, when more than 154,000 Oklahomans have filed unemployment claims and thousands of jobs seemed to vanish overnight at hotels, restaurants and in the oil fields.
The state sought to obtain millions of dollars in equipment from dozens of businesses, including one Florida company that federal investigators said was involved in international drug trafficking, records show.
State officials ordered N95 respirators from a kiteboarding company in California called Wind Over Water Kiteboarding. They found respirators at an industrial hemp company based in Utah, Green Rock Hemp Holdings, LLC..
Miranda Patterson, 24, recovered from the coronavirus in April. But she learned earlier this week that she’d been identified as a virus-related death for nearly a month.
As Oklahoma scrambled to secure face masks and other life-saving equipment to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, the state issued orders totaling around $80 million to businesses it has refused to disclose to the public.
Deputy Secretary of Health and Mental Health Carter Kimble said although long-term care facilities had always been part of the state’s response to the pandemic, the state didn’t designate a team to focus solely on that area until mid-April.
