OU's Chief COVID-19 Officer: COVID-19 Cases Trending Down, Precautions Still Needed

OU's Chief COVID-19 Officer says case counts statewide are slowly trending down.

Dr. Dale Bratzler says trends are heading in the right direction, but we're not out of the woods yet.

Dr. Bratzler says it appears we are now past the post-holiday surge and nationwide case counts are down 10 percent.

Here in the Oklahoma, the state is seeing about a 40 percent drop in the weekly rolling average compared to just 9 days ago.

Bratzler says while testing is down, he says the percent positive rate is lower, indicating to him the numbers are accurate.

Hospitalization rates are also lower but deaths remain high.

Friday, the state reported 47 new deaths.

Bratzler says deaths often lag behind other data and with high numbers of ICU patients in recent weeks, that number was expected.

He says despite the optimism, Oklahomans still need to take precautions.

"Even though the numbers look better, we can't let down our vigilance right now,” said Bratzler. “Otherwise we could see an uptick in the cases again. We just don't want to go back to where we were."

Bratzler says rural spread of the virus is still high, but lower than it has been.