Tulsa County this week will reach a milestone of 3% of residents having contracted COVID-19, public health officials said.
Dr. Bruce Dart of Tulsa Health Department said the milestone will almost certainly be reached Wednesday.
Tulsa County, which has seen 180 resident fatalities, reported 218 new cases Tuesday.
A recent spike of infections was reported at Tulsa County jail, which has 79 active cases as of Tuesday, causing a downtown ZIP code to be designated at severe risk on a Tulsa Health Department alert map.
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Mayor G.T. Bynum said the rising level of hospitalizations for Tulsa County residents in the past week has been "unsafe." Patients from Tulsa County account for about 200 of the state's 760 reported hospitalizations.
"We're getting into ranges that we haven't really been in since July, the time period we felt we needed to implement a mask ordinance in the first place," he said in response to a question about action steps from City Council.
Bynum added that a statewide mask ordinance would benefit Tulsans because of the traffic from suburban communities with no mask ordinance and limited compliance with face coverings.
"Something has to change because of the elevated levels of hospitalizations we're seeing," he said.
Watch the noon news conference here or via facebook.com/cityoftulsa.
