Buy a funeral plan if you won’t stay home in pandemic, Oklahoma sheriff says

An Oklahoma sheriff fed up with stay-at-home scofflaws offers some blunt advice in a Facebook post pleading with people to keep themselves and their families safe.

“If your not going to stay away from crowds. then please get yours and your kids burial policy paid up and get your heart right with God,” writes Sheriff Terry Park of Choctaw County.

“This C19 virus isn’t going away anyway soon,” Park says in the March 31 post. “Remember this if you get put in the hospital your family can’t stay with you. Stop letting your young people go out to the little beer parties I’m hearing about. Stop taking the whole family grocery shopping.”

More than 1.3 million cases of the COVID-19 virus have been confirmed worldwide with more than 76,000 deaths as of April 7, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has more than 368,000 confirmed cases with more than 11,000 deaths.

The World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic. The United States has declared a national emergency.

In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt has extended a statewide stay-at-home order to try to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus through April 30, KTUL reported.

Choctaw County, in southern Oklahoma on the Texas border, had an estimated 2019 population of nearly 15,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Park has made numerous Facebook posts warning people to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously.

“This running around thinking your untouchable is over,” he wrote Saturday. “I’m not ready to die are you? Pray to God we haven’t spread it worse running in these stores by the thousands.”

“We’re going through some strange times that most never encountered,” reads a Friday post by the sheriff. “Stay home away from one another. Lord be with us. If you must get out at least were those mask and gloves.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 12:02 PM.