One-day record of 65 COVID-19 deaths reported in Oklahoma

by KEN MILLER

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma State Department of Health will receive an approximately 16% increase in coronavirus vaccine per week during the next three weeks, deputy state health commissioner Keith Reed said Tuesday.

The announcement comes on the same day the health department reported a new one-day record of 65 deaths due to COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

The increase in vaccines is in line with President Joe Biden’s announcement that the U.S. is ramping up deliveries of the vaccine to provide enough doses for 300 million Americans by the end of the summer or early fall.

Oklahoma expects to receive just more than 103,000 doses per week from the federal government, an increase from just under 85,000 last week, Reed said, allowing for more consistent planning in how many vaccinations are available, and possibly expanding where the inoculations are offered.

“This allows us to take a look at what’s going to happen the next three weeks, it helps us to understand how much vaccine supply we have that we can support bringing on some other pandemic providers,” such as local pharmacies, Reed said.

The state has vaccinated 350,548 people as of midnight Monday, Reed said, including 50,371 who have now received both doses of either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine.

The record increase of 65 deaths is three more than the previous one-day record of 62, reported on Jan. 6, according to health department records.

The health department also reported 2,686 new virus cases Wednesday for totals of 3,388 deaths and 379,110 cases since the pandemic began.

The seven-day rolling average of new deaths in the state has increased the past two weeks from 33.29 per day to 40.86 while the rolling average of new cases has declined from 4,169.86 per day to 2,578.57, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Oklahoma had the seventh highest rate of new cases per capita in the United States at 988.24 per 100,000 population, according to the Johns Hopkins data.

Health officials have said the gap is because it can take several weeks to confirm a death was caused by COVID-19 and the health department said the deaths reported Wednesday occurred between Dec. 14 and Jan. 25.