Governor Stitt Tours Tulsa ER That Provides Monoclonal Antibody Treatments

Governor Kevin Stitt is looking for answers after the federal government put new limits on orders of monoclonal antibody treatments to treat COVID-19.

The Governor was in Tulsa on Thursday touring a medical center that provides the treatments.

The Governor had other events in Tulsa Thursday morning, but came to Tulsa ER & Hospital in the afternoon to check out the hospital model, which he said could be successful for rural Oklahoma. He also met with doctors to talk about antibody treatments.

At Tulsa ER and Hospital, doctors have treated a thousand COVID patients with monoclonal antibodies so far, averaging about 20 to 30 per day.

This treatment, which gives extra antibodies to fight the virus, takes about 20 minutes and is showing about 80 percent effectiveness.

Stitt said in the past few weeks though the Biden administration has put limits on orders after a surge in demand from several states, and the federal government will now allocate the drugs to state health departments instead.

The Governor said these new limits though could hurt Oklahomans.

"Before hospitals like this, ERs could just order that,” said Stitt. “Now the federal government has come in and kind of limited our ability to do that in the state of Oklahoma."

Stitt said it appears that cases of the Delta variant have peaked in Oklahoma and are trending down, but it's something they're watching closely.