EDITORIAL: Vaccines help

Jul. 24—Public health officials told us they wish more Pittsburg County residents would get vaccinated after average daily cases jumped five-fold in the past week.

The Oklahoma State Department of Health reported Pittsburg County averaged two new daily cases last week. This week's average jumped to 9.8.

As we learned last year during the height of the pandemic, more cases ultimately leads to more hospitalizations and more deaths. So while we might not see as many hospitalizations locally yet, data and experience over the past year shows it will happen.

Oklahoma is already seeing spikes with OSDH reporting an 80.1% increase in COVID-19 cases and 37 deaths statewide over the past week. COVID-19 hospitalizations also increased statewide over the past week.

Pittsburg County is designated in the yellow, or low risk level — but surrounding counties have seen COVID-19 spikes too.

McIntosh, Haskell, Latimer, Pushmataha and Coal counties are now all in the orange, or moderate risk level for the spread of COVID-19 indicating which counties seeing a new daily case average greater than 14.29 per 100,000.

Pittsburg County's new daily case average was 9.8 as of Wednesday, while Pushmataha County to the southeast was 39.9, Latimer County to the east was 28.4, and Coal County to the southwest was 20.8.

District 9/Pittsburg County Health Department Administrator Juli Montgomery told us Pittsburg County's numbers haven't jumped as high because of its higher vaccination rate — and she hopes more people get the jabs.

Medical experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend getting the COVID-19 vaccination, which is safe and effective.

Everyone is free to do their own research — but we've laid out the data showing COVID-19 cases increasing, reported on how vaccines help protect us from it, and shared wire stories on its impact for more than a year.

But those who still don't believe our reporting on the real-life devastation COVID-19 inflicted on our community, our state, our nation and the world might be more inclined instead to listen to famous people.

Former president Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump got the vaccine.

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt got the one-shot Johnson & Johnson jab live at an event open to the media in March.

Celebrities like Trisha Yearwood, Eric Church, Anthony Anderson, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Patrick Mahomes, and more got vaccinated.

That's obviously not to say we should all do everything famous people do. But those are examples of people who got the vaccine, which helps us all protect against spread of COVID-19.

So no matter how we all get to the answer — whether listening to medical experts or famous people who did — we hope everyone gets to the correct one answer: vaccines help us against COVID-19.

We all want to get back to normal. Let's get a quick shot so we can get a little closer to it.

—McAlester News-Capital Editorial Board