Oklahoma records spike in Covid-19 cases after Trump's campaign rally

The campaign rally organized by the United States President Donald Trump has caused a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases in Oklahoma.

According to according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University, the state recorded 478 new infections on June 21, the highest daily case count since the outbreak began.

The latest cases were recorded a day after President Donald Trump’s campaign rally was held on Saturday in Tulsa, the county seat of Tulsa County.

The latest figures bring the total confirmed cases in the state to at least 10,516, as of Monday.

Tulsa County’s seven-day rolling average of new cases has been on a sharp incline from June 1 to June 21, increasing from 13.7 to 112.1, respectively, according to the latest report from the Tulsa Health Department.

The state’s daily case count has been on a mostly increasing trend from around June 6 to June 21, rising from 52 to 478 daily new cases, respectively.

Concerns over a spike in cases were raised by health experts in the lead up to Trump’s rally in Tulsa, which was the president’s first rally since the outbreak began.

The country has banned all political rallies since March due to the threat of spreading infection among crowds.

Last week, the daily seven-day average number of new COVID-19 cases per million in Oklahoma rose by 140.3 percent in the week ending June 18, from the figure reported the previous week, according to research by Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and public health scientist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.

“I do think there is a high risk of the Trump rally in Tulsa increasing risk of further spreading the virus,” Feigl-Ding said.

He noted how serious the threat of increased infection across the country could be as a result of Saturday’s rally.

A physician and an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Oxford’s Business School, Peter Drobac, said, “If you tried to design a superspreader event for COVID-19, it would look a lot like one of these rallies.

“It’s perfectly designed to foster the spread of a respiratory virus. I worry about the risk to attendees, to their loved ones, and to the president,” he added