Health Experts To Discuss Vaccinations, Delta Variant In Oklahoma

Vaccines and COVID-19's more contagious Delta variant will be the focus of Tuesday's update from a team of Oklahoma health experts.

With just a few weeks to go until school starts, they'll also be talk about vaccinating kids.

Doctors are worried more younger kids will get infected when they head back to class, because they're not old enough to get the shot yet.

Dr. Sam Raterman out of Grove in northeast Oklahoma said nine out of 10 patients he recently admitted all had COVID. This is something Raterman said he's never seen in his career.

He also said about 75% of patients in his hospital are COVID-positive.

Dr. David Chansolme with Integris said he's starting to see this issue migrate to Oklahoma City, but this time, hospitals aren't canceling elective procedures.

"Our hospitals are already full of all of those people who are trying to do catch up work from the care we were not able to dispense over the last 15 months. So, it's tougher to find those intensive care beds," he said.

Right now, the state health department said Oklahoma is averaging about 691 new COVID cases per day, with more than 5,600 active cases Tuesday morning.