Okla. Opts Out Of White House Coronavirus Task Force Reports

Oklahoma is opting out of the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s weekly report.

According to Publicradiotulsa.org the Oklahoma State Department of Health’s PR Firm, Saxum, said they are opting out because the U.S. Department of Health and Human services is now publishing daily national COVID-19 data on Healthdata.org, giving Oklahomans a real-time look at the data.

“They’re posting all that data on their website. The information is available to the public,” said Governor Kevin Stitt during a press conference. “If our team wants any recommendations we’ll call them for it. The data is there, and I’ll leave it up to these guys if they want to get more recommendations from it.”

However, the task force’s reports are specifically designed for each state, including hospital admissions and test positivity rate data.

The Center for Public Integrity reports the task force will only give out the briefs if the states request them.

In the past, state leaders haven’t taken the task force’s advice, like recommending business capacity restrictions and a statewide mask mandate.

In it’s December 27th report, Oklahoma still ranks first in the nation for test positivity.