Walmart began making employees wear protective masks last week. The El Reno store has closed off its Tire and Lube Express entrance to customers and turned it into a screening entrance for employees. Each worker must have their temperature taken and wear a mask before entering the store. The store has installed protective shields in front of its registers like other retail sites in town.
While the status of the game is yet to be determined as the state emerges from its COVID-19 hibernation, the Oklahoma Girls Basketball Coaches Association recently released its 2020 All-State teams.
The association names three All-State teams each season - small, middle and large school squads for both the East and the West. Each team has 10 members and the teams face each other during a weekend of action in June.
“The games are on hold for now,” said El Reno High School girls head coach Jennifer Douglas, who sits on the OGBCA Board.
While many people are doing their part by social distancing in an effort to remain healthy and protect the community, there are others looking to make a quick buck.
Those fraudulent marketers are popping up and promoting various products that claim to help prevent or treat COVID-19, said Janice Hermann, Oklahoma State University Extension nutrition specialist.
“Fraudulent COVID-19 products can come in many varieties including dietary supplements and other foods, as well as products claiming to be tests, drugs, medical devices or vaccines,” Hermann said.
MARRIAGE LICENSES
Gage Dean Kingery, 24; Madison Emmalee Johnson, 23.
Thomas Gunner Moser, 26; Chelsea Lauren Parker, 25.
Zachary Tyler Millwee, 21; Autumn Gail Jones, 19.
Jason John Spanich, 48; Julee Summer Thummel, 41.
Carl Alan Garrison, 48; Sharon Orlena Moore, 40.
Calin Matthew Conley, 25; Kaitlyn Michelle Mason, 24.
Ryan Collin Bland, 46; Dasa Sharee Chrisman, 38.
Gene Aaron Pyle, 56; Michelett F. Rizzo, 56.
Benjamin Aaron Holt, 37; Erica Renee Lee, 31.
The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Oklahoma broke through the 3,000 mark Thursday, reaching 3,017, and deaths climbed by nine to a total of 179, the Oklahoma State Department of Health reported.
Well over half of the coronavirus-related deaths have occurred in five counties – Tulsa, Cleveland, Oklahoma, Wagoner and Washington. More than 80 percent of people who have died were ages 65 or older, and as of Tuesday, more than a third had lived or worked in nursing homes.
Oklahomans are feeling widespread pain because of the nation’s economic shutdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic and a resulting glut in the demand for oil.
Economic recovery in the state will be slow through this summer and into the winter, according to economists at Oklahoma State University, who predict that as many as 10,000 jobs could be lost in the energy sector alone.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” said Dr. Dan Rickman, a Regents Professor in Economics and a researcher at the OSU Center for Applied Economic Research (CAER) at the Spears School of Business.
El Reno will wait a week longer before allowing certain businesses to open. This breaks from the guidelines set by Gov. Kevin Stitt who said some businesses could reopen Friday in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayor Matt White decided Thursday that personal care businesses will remain closed in El Reno until April 30. That was the day originally set in El Reno’s emergency proclamation.
On Wednesday, Stitt announced the rollout of a three-step plan to reopen the state beginning April 24.
A 30-year-old El Reno man has been arrested in connection with the death of Robert James Meely, 40. Police said Andrew Keifer Beartrack, 30, was taken into custody in connection with the homicide investigation.
Beartrack is being held in the Canadian County jail and faces a charge of First Degree Murder, said Assistant Police Chief Kirk Dickerson.
The arrest came on Wednesday, the day after divers searched the pond at Legion Park. The divers, from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, reportedly found items police described as “interesting.”
