Blackwell clear of COVID as pandemic numbers plummet

by Jordan Green

Blackwell has no active coronavirus cases for the first time in months, state officials reported Monday. Data from the Oklahoma State Department of Health showed that Blackwell has 682 cases, comprised of 655 recoveries and 27 deaths.

Added together, those figures leave the city with no active cases. Kay County has only nine active COVID-19 cases, eight of which are in Ponca City, data showed.

Officials said 5,185 Kay County residents have recovered from the virus, and 126 have died from it.

The county has a total of 5,320 cases. State officials report that there are 3,896 cases of the virus in Ponca City. Eighty-one people there have died, and 3,807 have recovered. Tonkawa has 375 cases, with 359 recoveries and 15 deaths. Newkirk, Kaw City and Braman also have no active COVID-19 cases. Newkirk, the county seat, has 439 cases, with 433 recoveries and six deaths. Kaw City has 64 cases, with 61 recoveries and three deaths. Braman has 24 cases, with 23 recoveries and one death.

The state health department does not provide data on coronavirus cases in some of the state’s smallest towns, including Nardin in Kay County. In recent weeks, the state health department has changed the way it counts coronavirus cases and deaths.

The department now includes provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control on its website. Those numbers are higher than the state’s investigated total number of cases. The department’s investigated numbers show that the state has 450,315 cases of the virus.

Of those cases, 2,135 are active. Statewide, 6,878 people have died from the virus. The CDC’s provisional numbers show that the state has 451,279 cases of the virus and 8,379 deaths. More than 1.2 million Oklahomans are fully vaccinated, officials said, and more than 1.5 million have received at least one dose. For more information on vaccinations, visit https://oklahoma.gov/covid19/vaccineinformation/vaccine-faqs.html.

The news that Blackwell has no active cases comes days after the Centers for Disease Control announced that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear face coverings indoors or outdoors, unless other laws or regulations require them to do so. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic,” CDC officials wrote on the organization’s website.

“Fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.”

The CDC encourages people who are feeling sick to be tested for COVID-19, even if they’re vaccinated, and tells people who are not vaccinated to take the vaccine.