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President Donald Trump's re-election campaign has been told to submit a social distancing plan for its rally in Tulsa this Saturday as new cases spike in Oklahoma and fears grow that the event will accelerate the spread of COVID-19.
The BOK Center in Oklahoma said on Thursday night it had asked Trump's team for a written plan setting out all the steps they would take to ensure Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and social distancing measures were followed at the 19,000 capacity arena.
The host of the president's first re-election rally in several months also said it would be taking its own measures to curb the spread of infection, promising to regularly clean throughout the event and install plexiglass partitions in concession areas.
The BOK Center made public its request of the Trump 2020 campaign as an increasing number of new coronavirus cases emerge in Oklahoma and public health officials express concerns about holding the rally.
According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, new COVID-19 infections in the state rose by more than 50 percent over the past two weeks. A total of 1,421 new cases were recorded in Oklahoma from June 11 to 17, up from 678 new cases reported between June 4 to 10.
Tulsa County accounted for more than a third of all new cases in the state between June 11 to 17, with 517 locals reportedly becoming infected with COVID-19.
In a statement, the BOK Center's marketing director Meghan Blood said: "Given the Tulsa Health Department's recent reports of increases in coronavirus cases and the State of Oklahoma's encouragement for event organizers to follow CDC guidelines, we have requested that the Trump campaign, as the event organizer, provide BOK Center with a written plan detailing the steps the event will institute for health and safety, including those related to social distancing. Once received, we will share the plan with local health officials."
Blood said the Trump 2020 campaign had already agreed to check the temperatures of attendees and provide each of them with face masks and hand sanitizer before entering the arena.
BOK Center staff will also face temperature checks and be provided with personal protective equipment before they enter the Tulsa arena tomorrow.
"Four hundred hand sanitizing stations have been placed throughout the building for attendee and employee use," the BOK Center said.
Trump's rally is expected to be a sellout after the president's 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale claimed that more than a million tickets for the event had been requested.
It was also reported by The Oklahoman on Tuesday that the rally would spill over into a second venue due to the high level of demand, increasing the total capacity between both to 62,000.
According to a real-time event planning risk assessment tool released by Georgia Tech researchers, hosting an event with 19,000 people in Oklahoma would come with a 99 percent chance of at least one attendee being COVID-19 positive.
Infected rally attendees could then unwittingly spread the disease to other Trump supporters in the 565,000-square-foot area, a risk that is heightened if attendees stand close together or lower their face masks at any point.
The BOK Center said it would be encouraging Trump's crowd to stay masked throughout his rally tomorrow night.
Dr. Bruce Dart, director of Tulsa City-County Health Department, told local newspaper Tulsa World on Saturday that a "large indoor rally with 19-20,000 people is a huge risk factor."
"I think it's an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic," said Dart.
"I'm concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I'm also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well...I wish we could postpone this to a time when the virus isn't as large a concern as it is today."
In an emailed statement, Trump campaign Director of Communications Tim Murtaugh said: "We've received a letter from arena management and we're reviewing it. We take safety seriously, which is why we're doing temperature checks for everyone attending, and providing masks and hand sanitizer.
"This will be a Trump rally, which means a big, boisterous, excited crowd. We don't recall the media shaming demonstrators about social distancing - in fact the media were cheering them on."
