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State's COVID-19 'insurance policy' is constructed but empty as officials patiently wait to purchase equipment

Construction on Oklahoma’s COVID-19 “insurance policy” is complete, but without a surge the renovated hospital rooms remain empty as officials evaluate what equipment to purchase and await lower costs in oversupply markets.

As part of its plan to create an additional 40% capacity in hospital systems, the state contracted with OSU Medical Center in Tulsa and Integris-Baptist Medical Center Portland Avenue in Oklahoma City to serve as flex sites in case hospitals reach capacity.

Mayor G.T. Bynum on Thursday noted that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had finished construction on 125 rooms on three floors at OSU Medical Center that are designated only for COVID-19 care. There are 110 such rooms renovated at Integris.

Donelle Harder, spokeswoman for the state on COVID-19, said all the rooms at each location remain empty of equipment as hospitalizations in Oklahoma trend downward and the overflow capacity isn’t required.

She explained that officials are evaluating what other states didn’t need to purchase for their flex sites so that Oklahoma only buys what is absolutely necessary. The state also is looking to find unused, high-quality equipment at more competitive pricing as some states might sell off excesses after gearing up earlier for projections that turned out not to be as bleak.

“It’s kind of the state’s insurance plan for COVID,” Harder said. “All the recent experts are saying we’re probably two years out from getting into a scenario where we feel we’re eradicating COVID.

“We’re a year out if not more from a vaccine, and at that point, how much of the vaccine will really be available to the general public? How soon will we know how effective the vaccine is?”

The agreements are for $3,000 per bed per day, according to each contract.

At OSU, that equates to $375,000 per day or $22,500,000 total over the lease’s initial 60 days, which ends June 15.

The contract is renewable on a monthly basis and similar to the one with Integris. Integris’ initial term ends July 1 at $330,000 per day or a total cost of $20,130,000.

Oklahoma Watch first reported about the contracts earlier this month.

Harder said the daily bed cost might seem like a retainer simply for the bed space, but it also encompasses the projected costs to construct and fully staff the units. So, she said, the actual cost isn’t expected to be as high as what is listed in the contracts.

“We’re clearly going to come in under because we’ve not had to staff it yet,” Harder said. “We’ve not had people in beds. We don’t have beds.”

Monica Roberts, OSU’s director of media relations, said a construction invoice hasn’t been produced yet but the cost is expected to be about $6 million.

Harder said existing spaces were converted into intensive-care or medical-grade rooms that control airflow. The state won’t know total construction costs until it is invoiced for the work at OSU Med and Integris.

“We have the most control over OSU’s (contract) because it’s a state entity, whereas Integris, being private, they largely will be in a situation where they can just bill us because we have a contract in place,” Harder said. “Whereas with OSU, even though we have a contract in place, they are still a state entity, so we’re just kind of guaranteed a deeper level of collaboration.”

Harder said the state is in discussions regarding contract renewals or extensions.

She said it’s possible the contracts are allowed to conclude and, in that scenario, it would be in OSU Med’s and Integris’ interests to maintain the facilities in case the state later re-enters agreements amid a resurgence.

“We expect the partnership to continue, but the way the cost structure is arranged will clearly be reviewed at the end of these contracts,” Harder said.

The state will leverage federal reimbursement by pursuing grants from FEMA, HHS and the CARES Act to fully fund the COVID flex centers, from construction to staffing costs.

Without immediate demand, the plan now is to outfit the rooms more slowly in 50-unit increments. Harder said the state’s current agreements allow OSU to relocate and use equipment already at the hospital if demand should rise until new equipment is bought.

“There’s so many unknowns that both of these locations are set up for the potential that COVID really is among us longer than we want it to be,” Harder said. “We want it to be gone sooner, but we technically don’t know when the medical community will have developed a solution to truly rid itself in our state or around the globe.”

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Look for the helpers: Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma The Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, based in Tulsa, always has eye-popping numbers for the food it provides to those in need covering 22 counties.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, those numbers are spiraling upward, thanks to the efforts of food bank executive chef Jeff Marlow and partnerships with Tulsa Kitchens Unite, Hunger Free Oklahoma and Food on the Move.

During a recent week, 32,100 meals were delivered, including thousands to local schoolchildren.

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Photo by MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: 100,000 bottles of hand sanitizer in Bartlesville Last month, hundreds of gallons of hand sanitizer were sitting in large tubs in the Washington, D.C., area with nowhere to go.

Craft distilleries were pivoting to making and selling hand sanitizer because they had the alcohol content available and there was a severe need for the product, which was flying off shelves across the country amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

“The problem they ran into very quickly — and that’s where we came in — was they had no means and no ability to package and transport this hand sanitizer because their business was a completely different business,” said Ashish Sukhadia, global polyethylene applications manager at Chevron Phillips Chemical’s Bartlesville Research and Technology Center.

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Photo courtesy from Chevron Phillips Look for the helpers: The Opportunity Project The COVID-19 pandemic has created tough circumstances for many Tulsa families, and The Opportunity Project has been doing its part in assisting families in need.

Executive Director Caroline Shaw said the organization is an out-of-school time intermediary.

“We are support for organizations that provide learning experiences beyond the classroom,” Shaw said. “That’s everything from after school programs, summer camps, chess clubs, athletic activities — all kinds of things that expand experiences in learning for kids that doesn’t happen in a traditional classroom setting or beyond the school day.”

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Courtesy photo Look for the helpers: 413 Farm helps Amelia’s Market When restaurants had to curtail inside dining and furlough employees because of the coronavirus pandemic, many eateries scrambled to develop a plan for takeout and curbside orders.

The new Amelia’s Market & Brasserie, 114 N. Boston Ave., a sister restaurant to Amelia’s Wood Fired Cuisine, started with a skeleton crew, to say the least.

In stepped Angela Faughtenberry, owner of 413 Farm near Adair, who had developed a special relationship with Amelia’s and chef Kevin Snell, selling poultry, pork, eggs and other items since the wood-fire grill first opened.

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Photo by SCOTT CHERRY/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Vintage Wine Bar Vintage Wine Bar is stepping up to help people in the food service industry who are out of work.

The wine bar and restaurant, 324 E. First St., is providing meals through a “pay what you can” program that it playfully is calling “Food for the Screw’d.”

On a recent week, when executive chef Colin Sato prepared meals featuring Thai green curry with rice, Vintage served 984 meals.

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Courtesy photo Look for the helpers: Artist Scott Taylor If your kids need a hero during the pandemic, maybe they can learn to draw their own.

Artist Scott Taylor, the executive creative at Tulsa’s Colorpop Art Lab, teaches free how-to-draw-superheroes classes remotely.

“As a parent myself, I know how important it is for parents to be able to offer their children creatively enriching and educational content that helps them grow. So I decided to try and start doing that but in a way that makes it fun for them.”

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Courtesy photo Look for the helpers: YMCA celebrates Healthy Kids Day The YMCA of Greater Tulsa wasn’t about to break tradition, even for a pandemic.

For more than 25 years, the annual Healthy Kids Day has been an opportunity for the YMCA to teach healthy habits, encourage active play and inspire a love for physical activity.

To celebrate this year’s Healthy Kids Day, which is Saturday, the YMCA of Greater Tulsa is handing out 1,500 soccer balls to participants of its year-round and summer camps. The balls are being picked up at the kids’ schools or hand-delivered by their favorite staff members.

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Photo by STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Meal donations to prison guards With a smile, Samantha Faulkner loaded up meals for the guards working at the prison where she once served five years for forgery and conspiracy crimes.

After being released, Faulkner went into Take 2: A Resonance Café, a program of Resonance for Women, to get back on her feet. She now attends Tulsa Community College seeking a social work degree while working at the restaurant.

When Tulsa nonprofit Poetic Justice called about donations it was making to staffs at area jails and the state women’s prisons, Faulkner didn’t hesitate to pitch in.

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Photo by MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: The Center for Individuals with Physical Challenges The Center for Individuals with Physical Challenges turned to Facebook Live to continue to provide opportunities for its members and reached out to a broader audience online than ever before.

As an organization with staff to care for, as well as a membership of chiefly high-risk individuals in relation to coronavirus, it had to make quick adjustments, said Tori Ladd, communications director for The Center for Individuals with Physical Challenges.

It closed its doors in March. Staff are working from home and reaching out to meet the individual needs of members through a membership page on Facebook and the public through its public Facebook page, she said.

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Photo by IAN MAULE/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Local nurse heads to New York Tiffany Walton opened a daiquiri bar in Tulsa last year — Alibi Ice Lounge. Folks played cards and dominoes there, had a few drinks, sang karaoke, forgot about their troubles. It was a lot of fun.

It just wasn’t Walton’s calling. That was nursing, something she had done the last 13 years around the Tulsa area, something she felt destined to do since she was a little girl.

“They said I had praying hands and healing hands,” she says. “My mom used to say, ‘Tiffany, your aunt’s knees are hurting.’ I would go over and touch them and pray on them. When dogs and animals were hurt or people were sick, I would sing and pray on them and they would be healed. My dad was a Methodist preacher. I would pray over the communion and sing in the choir. My grandma was a midwife.

“This was given to me.”

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Photo by MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Tulsa artist Rachel Rose Dazey Some claim that copper can have some kind of therapeutic effect on certain ailments.

Tulsa artist Rachel Rose Dazey makes no claims about the possible health benefits of the copper jewelry she creates, but she is putting her work to use to help fellow local artists who are struggling in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dazey is selling copper cuffs through her studio website, dillonrose.net, and is donating 50% of the profits from those sales to help local artists. The cuffs are priced at $30 and $40, depending on the style.

“My goal when I started this was to raise at least $2,500,” Dazey said. “Just a few days after we started, we had already taken in about $1,800.”

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Courtesy photo Look for the helpers: Meals on Wheels Driven by COVID-19 needs, Meals on Wheels Metro Tulsa has upended its longstanding model and tripled its clientele in the month since Tulsa County confirmed its first case of the disease.

The sharp rise isn’t strictly tied to vulnerable seniors who are sheltering in place. The nonprofit’s footprint is expanding during a $450,000 capital campaign to capture other gaps caused or exposed by the pandemic.

Calvin Moore, president and CEO, said families and individuals quarantined by positive coronavirus tests and first responders adversely affected by the disease now are on regular routes. And last Saturday marked the first day Meals on Wheels dropped off bulk deliveries to churches near its east Tulsa offices to aid the city’s Hispanic population.

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Photo by MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World Looking for the helpers: SPCA animal cruelty investigator Tim Geen has never been a delivery person before, but this pandemic has put his day job on hold, and it’s the least he could do to tide over some furry clients.

“It’s not very much fun,” the animal cruelty investigator admitted with a chuckle. “But somebody’s gotta do it, ya know? It’s very important to the care and well-being of these animals. They’re depending on us.”

In March, Geen delivered close to 3,000 pounds of donated dog and cat food to hundreds of pets all over Tulsa County.

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Photo by MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Ti Amo It was three minutes after 2 p.m. and some 30 automobiles were lined up in the parking lot behind Ti Amo Ristorante Italiano. Owner Mehdi Khezri, wearing a white mask and rubber gloves, was handing out free boxes of food to each vehicle.

“We already have handed out more than 90 boxes,” he said. “We weren’t supposed to start until 2, but the line of cars was getting so long we started a little early.”

By the end of the day, Khezri and his staff had given away 330 boxes of food that would feed “close to 700 people, depending on how much each person eats,” Khezri said.

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Photo by MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Mask maker Chelsea Pinney made sure senators returning Monday to the Capitol were covered.

Pinney made 50 masks for senators for their one-day return for a special and regular session to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and try to fix a budget hole.

Lawmakers were called in small groups from their offices to the chamber to cast votes in an effort to follow social distancing. Click here to read more

Courtesy photo Look for the helpers: Balloon artists Two years into his home-based business and two months after his first major award, the coronavirus pandemic let the air out of Brady DeGroot’s rising Ballon-ertainment business, but he’s busy keeping people happy anyway.

Just as the season for Easter parties, proms, graduations and class reunions kicked off, the pandemic popped one bubble but gave rise to another.

“One Million Bubbles of Hope” had 350 balloon artists from 15 countries putting up displays in random places “to help bring happiness to as many lives as they can” on March 20. A second worldwide event, organized online at onemillionbubbles.org, is set for April 11-12.

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Photo by STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Animal fostering A mere week after a Tulsa animal shelter sought foster homes for every animal in its care amidst COVID-19, the kennels and cages were clear.

“We were pleasantly overwhelmed,” said Jen Bladen, communications director for Tulsa SPCA. “I am so touched by each family that comes to pick up a foster animal and tells us how excited they are to have somebody to quarantine with.”

The actual days seemed to tick by slowly, Bladen said, but in retrospect, the more than 110 animals went quickly, and now the shelter’s Facebook page is flooded with pictures of happy puppies, kittens, cats and dogs in their temporary loving homes.

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Photo by JOHN CLANTON/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Harvard Meats owner Duke Dinsmore Duke Dinsmore saw a need coming even before the grocery store shelves and coolers were empty.

Dinsmore, owner of Harvard Meats, 1901 S. Elm Place, in Broken Arrow, said he emptied his checking account to stock up his shop in expectation of a rush on meat as people sought extra provisions in preparation for possible quarantines and lockdowns as the coronavirus spread in Oklahoma.

The risk paid off, and as big box retailers saw their meat departments emptied, more and more customers turned to small businesses like Dinsmore’s to feed their families. He’s been flooded with extra business, leading to 15- to 18-hour work days for Dinsmore and his crew as they try to keep up with demand.

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Photo by MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Tulsa Botanic Garden The Tulsa Botanic Garden closed to the public amid coronavirus threats just in time for its more than 100,000 tulip bulbs to begin to bloom, but garden staffers aren’t about to let them remain unseen.

More than 500 were cut and delivered to Hillcrest Medical Center on Tuesday, bringing a sweet surprise to nurses and patients alike.

“Lots and lots of smiles,” Chief Nursing Officer Jodi Simmons said. “Which is exactly what we need right now.”

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Mike Simons Look for the helpers: Libraries Need the most effective hand sanitizer recipe for your business? Easy. 3D-printed masks for first responders? You got it. Virtual storytimes and P.E. classes for students? Of course.

In a time where the “great equalizer” has been forced to close its doors to the public, library staff are working tirelessly to provide for their community in any way possible, remotely.

“The digital divide is real,” said Kiley Roberson, chief strategy officer for Tulsa City-County Library. “So many people don’t have access to the internet or computers. When the library is closed, how do people continue to get that access?

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JOHN CLANTON Look for the helpers: Tulsa artist Margee Golden Aycock The family that creates together is now working together to help fellow artists.

“I guess there’s something about having to be confined in one’s home that gets the creative juices flowing,” Margee Golden Aycock said.

She is a painter whose works have been shown and sold around Tulsa and the region for years, and was trying to think of something she might do to help people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Elementary school teacher Bethany Martin Bethany Martin is the owner of an inflatable T-Rex costume. Bored in this age of social distancing, she put on the costume a few days ago with the intent of bringing joy to others. She stood on the corner of 27th and Yale in her T-Rex suit and waved to people in passing cars.

Neighborhood kids spotted the T-Rex and alerted others to the dinosaur’s presence. Hmmmm.

“I was like, you know what, I should do this every day, go for a 10- or 20-minute walk and just give the kids something to look forward to,” Martin said.

“I’m a kindergarten teacher so I’m obviously not able to work right now, and I miss my students a lot. So it’s like, well, if I can’t be with my students, at least I can make some other students happy.”

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MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Tulsa Ballet costume shop The wardrobe staff of Tulsa Ballet typically spends its days working on, and surrounded by, some of the most beautiful costumes ever to grace a Tulsa stage.

But for this week, the staff is devoting all its time and energy to working with 8-by-14-inch rectangles of plain navy and black cotton fabric.

These pieces of costume remnants are being transformed into masks that Tulsa Ballet is donating to area hospitals and health services.

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MATT BARNARD/Tulsa World Look for the helpers: Tulsa distilleries With alcohol-based hand sanitizer still almost impossible for shoppers to find, two Tulsa-based distilleries are trying to help first responders keep their hands clean while on the job.

“We’re trying to find a way to support our brothers and sisters in service. We’re donating as much sanitizer to the Police Department as they need,” said Hunter Gambill, owner of Oklahoma Distilling Co.

Gambill said he is also providing locally made sanitizer in large plastic spray bottles.

“We’ve been using some of our own products, but the need is beyond our capacity,” he said.

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