The official rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to teachers and other school employees began Monday. The OSDH says they could not be more excited to give Oklahoma teachers the choice to be immunized and back in the classrooms. The hope is to eliminate or greatly reduce the need to pivot to distance learning for the remainder of the school year in classrooms in which masks are mandatory.
More than 681,000 Oklahomans have received the vaccine, including more than 204,000 who have received both required doses. The state is now ranked 12th in nation on Saturday, with 14.3 percent of the population receiving at least the first dose of the vaccine.
Now with several variants of the virus, health officials are in a race against mutations of the coronavirus. The faster people can get vaccinated, the slower the virus will spread and fewer people will be exposed to variant strains of the virus. Early data indicates the COVID-19 vaccines seem to be plenty effective against the two variants of concern that we know most about so far.
As of Monday, Feb. 22, 2021, a total of 28,190,159 people across the United States has been infected with the deadly virus and over 500,000 have lost their lives to the battle. Oklahoma is now looking at 419,853 infections and 4,203 deaths. Creek County is now reporting 6,642 infections and 112 deaths while Bristow is at 891 infections and 24 deaths. That is 26 more cases than this time last week and unforutnately three more Bristow residents have lost their lives this past week.