Health Officials Fear More COVID-19 Cases After Holiday Weekend As Virus Surge Continues In Oklahoma

One Oklahoman dies from COVID-19 every 47 minutes, according to new data from the Washington Post.

That's about 31 deaths per day over the last week.

After this holiday weekend with college football, traveling, and group gatherings, health officials fear it's going to get worse.

"When you are infected with COVID-19, you start spreading the virus two days before you get symptoms," said Dr. Dale Bratzler with OU Health.

Right now, Oklahoma is among the top 10 worst states for every national measurement on COVID-19 infections.

The Washington Post said Oklahoma ranks third in the U.S. for the increase in daily COVID-19 deaths over the last seven days.

As hospitals continue to push capacity, all health officials said the vaccine is your best defense.

Right now, 54% of the total Oklahoma population has at least one dose of the vaccine.

A new COVID variant called Mu is in Oklahoma , but research is not available yet to know if the Mu variant is more contagious than the Delta variant.

Health officials said the virus will continue to change and get worse.

"As long as the virus can keep spreading and replicating, mutations will occur," said Bratzler.

Hospitals said there are no available ICU beds in the Oklahoma City metro. The four hospital systems will provide updated information about their capacity on Wednesday.