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Tulsa Councilor Not Finding Traction For Proposal To Automatically Reinstitute COVID Mask Mandate

Matt Trotter
/
KWGS

City councilors do not appear to support a colleague’s proposal for a mask mandate trigger based on COVID-19 trends. 

District 4 Councilor Kara Joy McKee suggested some kind of trigger last week and said she still has concerns about the pandemic ahead of Tulsa’s mask order expiring April 30.

"We can’t control how infectious the virus is, but we can control our behaviors," McKee said during a Wednesday council committee meeting.

Monica Rogers with the Tulsa Health Department presented possible triggers to the council, including a test positivity rate of 10% or more, a week with at least 650 new cases, or two straight weeks with 500 or more new cases, but that may need to be adjusted in the case of a hypothetical variant spread less readily.

"We might not hit that trigger for the case rate because it’s just not as widespread in the community, but, for example, if that were to happen but it had an extremely high death rate, that might influence decision making," Rogers said.

District 7 Councilor Lori Decter Wright, who serves on the Mayor-Council COVID-19 Working Group, said officials continue to monitor trends in consultation with THD, making a trigger unnecessary.

"If some data points were coming up to the point of alarm for our community, it would be incumbent upon us to take whatever action, whether that’s a special meeting which we’ve done before, we’ve waived council rules, we’ve used emergency clauses in this pandemic to get the protections in place that we need," Decter Wright said.

District 8 Councilor Phil Lakin said if things get bad enough, the council has acted before.

"All we have to do if we have to do anything in the future is to use what’s already there, what we already know and what the citizens already know. So, I don’t even know really why we’re having this conversation, to be quite honest and truthful with you," Lakin said.

Council staff said there are also potential procedural issues with a trigger ordinance.

Rogers noted weekly data reports from the state may delay action longer than councilors want.

Matt Trotter joined KWGS as a reporter in 2013. Before coming to Public Radio Tulsa, he was the investigative producer at KJRH. His freelance work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC and CNN.
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