GOP senator defends Trump’s Tulsa rally as health official warns it’s a ‘huge risk factor’ amid coronavirus spike

Besieged by criticism for scheduling a campaign rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth, an observance of the end of U.S. slavery in a city notable for a historic outburst of racist violence, President Trump on Friday relented and bumped the event back by one day.

But Tulsa’s top health official is urging the campaign to again postpone — not over politics but over public health. As novel coronavirus cases have set new daily records in Oklahoma in recent days, Tulsa Health Department Director Bruce Dart warned over the weekend that a rally expected to draw more than 19,000 Trump supporters could ignite a bigger crisis.

“Covid is here in Tulsa, it is transmitting very efficiently,” Dart told the Tulsa Worldon Saturday. “I wish we could postpone this to a time when the virus isn’t as large a concern as it is today.” Continue reading.