Tulsa Health Department recognizes there is a lot of concern with COVID-19 and the re-opening of the communities. The act of social distancing and sheltering in place was not to stop the spread completely it was to slow the spread of the virus and to flatten the curve. This prevents the surges in the healthcare systems to be able to respond to those individuals who need assistance with COVID-19 while still assisting those with other healthcare needs outside of COVID-19.
As our State and communities begin to gradually re-open we still have the responsibility to each other to continue to practice social distancing so as COVID-19 cases will still be seen in our community, it will continue to remain flat or plateau to not overwhelm our response systems.
The Tulsa Health Department, State and other county public health officials, health care systems and our community partners will continue to work this response as we have been doing over the past weeks. We are working on industry-specific local guidance for businesses, food establishments, personal care places, day cares and more. Our communications team hopes to have available for businesses by early next week.
We will continue to identify and notify individuals of positive results working with them to identify those they were in close contact with 48-hours prior to symptom onset to when they began to self-isolate. We will work to notify close contacts of their exposure as we have been doing and make recommendations such as self-quarantine for 14 days and monitor symptoms.
As communities begin to re-open we will continue to ramp up our Epidemiology team to ensure we have the people in place to do this work so we can continue to work to protect the community. We will also continue to provide public health data to help guide our local elected officials. The health of our communities remain our top priority.
