The Oklahoma State Department of Health reported 151 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing Oklahoma's total to 5,237.
The number of new cases represents Oklahoma's largest single-day increase since early April. State officials have set out to test every nursing home resident and worker in the state, and testing in Texas County has increased significantly this week. An outbreak there started at a pork processing facility in Guymon, and the county of fewer than 20,000 residents has the third-most confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state behind Oklahoma and Tulsa counties.
Three new deaths were reported Saturday. All happened between April 30 and Wednesday. One was a man between 50 and 64 years old. The other two were men 65 or older.
COVID-19 has now killed 288 Oklahomans since March 18. In all, 878 people have been hospitalized, and 180 are currently in the hospital.
The state moved to phase two of Gov. Kevin Stitt's Open Up and Recover Safely plan on Friday.
The health department reported Saturday that 144 people had recovered from the illness in the past day, meaning they did not die, are not currently hospitalized and it has been at least 14 days since they tested positive. Symptoms, however, have been reported to linger for weeks.
A total of 3,945 people are now considered to have recovered from COVID-19, leaving the state with 1,292 known active cases.
The health department reported nearly 124,000 tests have now been performed. As of May 14, nearly 14,000 antibody tests had been performed, with 459 coming back positive. It is not known whether people with antibodies for the novel coronavirus are immune to infection.
