And I`m joined now by the mayor of the largest city in Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, David Holt. And he is one of the first mayors in the state to issue a stay-at-home order.
Mr. Mayor, thank you for joining us.
So, you`re going to have some -- per your governor here, you`re going to have some flexibility in your city in terms of what can open, what can`t open.
What`s your sense, by the end of this week, of what you think will be operating in some capacity in Oklahoma City?
DAVID HOLT (R), MAYOR OF OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA: Well, we also have to operate within the structure.
You`re right. We do have some flexibility in Oklahoma City. And, certainly, in the interest of public health, we`re going to use that, to the greatest degree practical.
We also have to recognize we operate within a structure where I`m only the mayor of less than half the people in my metro. And that`s probably going to be the case in many metropolitan areas. And so we have to have some kind of uniformity across the metro for there to be any real public health benefit in closures.
And that`s a realistic external factor that we had to consider as we moved forward.
Having said that, I think our list of openings will be very similar, if not identical, to the governor`s. But we`re going to put some conditions on that and commonsense stuff that you could probably imagine, but social distancing and sanitation protocols, to try to make this as safe as possible.
Obviously, we want to continue to keep the same mind-set we have had here for the last six weeks.
KORNACKI: Now, in terms of, once you put this in place, you put these conditions on it, talk about the monitoring process, then, because, I mean, if you get a report of one case, what do you do? If you get a report of 10 cases, what do you do?
How is the monitoring going to work? And how reactive are you going to be to reports of cases?
HOLT: Yes.
Well, I mean, data is critical. And we`re going to -- and I should say, I mean, we`re not moving forward on Friday if there`s some sudden change in the next four days. We`re going to be monitoring data every day between now and then.
Obviously, we seem to be in a decent position, relative to other places. And we appear, just barely, to meet the White House criteria as of last Friday. But we`re going to keep watching that.
But as we move forward into this new phase, absolutely. I mean, I have said it, and the governor has said it, that if there`s a sudden shift, if there`s a spike, then, obviously, this experiment has failed, and we have got to maybe go back to an earlier phase.
My hope, my optimistic hope, is that everybody has conditioned themselves over the last six weeks, and maybe we weren`t ready for this phase on March 15, but we`re ready for it now. And we`re certainly going to continue to message how important it is to take all the precautions we have been talking about, and if you are going to engage in these high-risk activities, that you do social distancing, and you do sanitation, you wear masks, all that stuff.
But, at the end of the day, no, we`re going to watch that data like a hawk.
KORNACKI: Yes.
So, I`m curious about that, because I think this is an issue that cities and states all across the country are going to have to deal with whenever it is that they begin to reopen in some way. And that is the difference between, OK, there`s a report of a case, there`s a report of a few dozen cases that might be kind of scattered and don`t represent a new outbreak, vs. you said the idea there of looking for a spike.
It seems easy to sort of say that, but how will you define that?
HOLT: Sure.
KORNACKI: How will you know you`re looking at a spike, and not just an assortment of sort of scattered cases?
HOLT: Well, that`s why we listen to public health officials.
I mean, we`re going to look for definition for that from the highest levels, people like Dr. Fauci, who`s a hero, but also people like here at our Oklahoma City County Health Department, Dr. Patrick McGough and his team here. They`re our local heroes.
And we`re going to rely -- nobody -- nobody`s depending on me for public health expertise, thank goodness. We`re going to rely on public health experts to tell us the significance of certain things, whether this is a spike that the whole community should be concerned about, or maybe it`s localized to one assisted living center.
I mean, all of that, obviously, are things that we have to consider. But we rely on public health officials, science and data, to make these decisions.
KORNACKI: All right, David Holt, the mayor of Oklahoma City, thank you for taking a few minutes. Appreciate that.
HOLT: Thank you very much. Be well.
