Mike DeWine Ohio Coronavirus Briefing Transcript May 4

Governor Mike DeWine: (12:46) Today is the 50th anniversary of the tragedy at Kent State, a very sad day in Ohio history. I would like to start our press conference today with a moment of silence, if we could, for those who died, for those who were injured, and those whose life was forever changed on that very tragic day. ( silence). Governor Mike DeWine: (13:37) Thank you. I ordered that the flags at the State House and all state buildings go to half-mast at 12:24 today. They will remain at half-mast for the rest of the day. We talked last week about the different working groups that we have put together that are focusing on how we restart different businesses, and I want to thank everyone who's working on those groups. There's a lot of them. I know they're working hard. I talked to the folks who were working on the restaurant group today and I know they made some very good progress today. Looks like they're about done about the protocol, and so we're very happy about that. So within the next several days we'll be rolling out that protocol and at the same time we will be able to announce the date when [inaudible 00:14:49] and we will be doing that in the next several days. Governor Mike DeWine: (14:59) One of the things that I think is important to note is that one of these groups is comprised of people in that industry. With the restaurant group, we have people who are involved in small diners all the way up to the bigger chains of restaurants. And they have worked very, very hard and I'm grateful for that work and you'll have the opportunity to see the results of that in the next several days. So as we start back really today with the opening of the manufacturing, the distribution, the construction, offices that were not already open. And then as we look to next week when on May 12th all retail will be completely open. I would remind everyone, because Senate President [inaudible 00:16:05] reminded me a couple of minutes ago that some people maybe did not hear or did not get the information in regard the ability of retail right now to take appointments or to do curbside service. Now we know that not every retail facility can take advantage of that. But we also know that some of them are, and I've noticed actually newspapers advertisements and everything, online talking about those appointments for some companies. So we would remind everybody that that's available today if that works for your retail company, but everybody will be open on May 12. And the other working groups are working very, very hard to come up with the best protocol. Governor Mike DeWine: (17:01) So as we start this new phase, okay, the emphasis is on how and made sure that as we go back we do it in as safe a way as possible and for that we are relying on the people who do the work every single day. Who know how to run a restaurant, for example, or know how their barbershop works. We're relying on them to really kind of set the guidelines and stand up and so that we can assure people when they go back that they are as safe as they can be. Governor Mike DeWine: (17:39) As we start back at this point, I think it's important to pause for a moment and I would ask Eric if you could put the chart up. Dr. Acton will talk about these. This is the chart she uses every day, but this is the chart for today, and she'll make reference to it today. But we've asked the folks who do the chart and do the data to give us a 21 day trend, because a 21 day tend, I think, gives you a fairly good idea, how we doing? Are we doing better? Are we doing worse? Are we doing the same? And I always look at ... There's a lot of things to look at but I always look at hospitalizations because hospitalization is a real figure. These are people who when they go in, they go in because they know that they have the COVID-19. Governor Mike DeWine: (18:34) So that hospitalization figure is right here and again, it's only 21 days, but we were showing you five day periods. Now we're showing you ... We're comparing what today's numbers were. So if you go over, for example, if you look at under hospitalizations, it gives you the total reported. Doesn't mean they're still all in the hospital, certainly we have got another graph that shows how many are there, but then you go to last reported 24 hour hospitalization change. Snapshot last 24 hours, so 40 additional people were hospitalized. If you look at the 21 day rolling average, the average of that last 21 days, it is average of 85 per day. So obviously these are good numbers. But the better view is if you look at the trend line. The trend line, maybe not as good as we would want certainly, but it is what it is. It is going down. You can see a trend line on deaths. This was due, I think Dr. Action I would tell you too, just a spike and a dump frankly of the numbers of people who died in a number of days previously to that. Governor Mike DeWine: (19:49) But you can kind of see where those numbers are. The cases, you kind of see, again, where those numbers are. So not exactly where we would want it, certainly. But it gives you an idea that we are headed in the direction. So did we start to open, really do more things in Ohio today, we're going to keep an eye on these numbers. And you probably won't ... You're not going to see a change in these because all these things take a while. But in three weeks, four weeks, as we look at these, we'll want to compare where we are with where we are on this date. This is an important date as we really start to open back up. And again, at this point it's always been about what you do. Not so much about what I say or Dr. Acton or the lieutenant governor says, it's really what you do. Governor Mike DeWine: (20:47) You're the ones who have got us here. We have not. You took us here. There's more and more things are opened up and more and more opportunities to go out and do things, and we want people to do that, but on the same time, we just want everybody to continue to be cautious, continue to follow basic distancing protocol, and go out, enjoy these retail businesses in a week. Restaurants will be coming on not too long after that. So a lot of things are happening as we're opening up at Ohio. But again, really this is now really, really up to you, and we just need to keep monitoring the numbers and see where we're going and what we will try to do or what we will do is something that we've done throughout. And that is to be as open with you and share with you every day of where these numbers are. So that gives us a little snapshot in time. Governor Mike DeWine: (21:48) I don't usually comment about demonstrators. The reason I don't comment about demonstrators is because I have been in public office for 40 years. I have a great respect for their constitutional right to demonstrate. I've had demonstrates demonstrate against me in most of the offices, if not all the offices I've ever held, they'd done it in many places, in many locations. They've done it for many, many different different times. As I shared with all of you, Fran and I grew up in Yellow Springs. We grew up in a town and that valued and values the first amendment to a great extent. As we were growing up, demonstrators were in Yellow Springs a lot. And so that is something we're used to and something that we respect. Governor Mike DeWine: (22:54) So I am fair game. But I want to talk for a moment about what's not fair game. It's not fair game to disrespect the news media, to be obnoxious to the news media. That's not fair game. You should come after me. Don't go after people who are exercising their first amendment rights, the first amendment rights that we value in this country so very, very much. Reporters, photographers who are doing nothing more than following that first amendment, informing the public, and just remember they're informing the public, they're informing the public about what you think, what you're saying, and what you think is important. And- Governor Mike DeWine: (24:02) And what you think is important. The best way for you to get that across is, the news media is going to cover you. But you treat them with disrespect, to not observe social distancing with them, to be just obnoxious, I just find that very sad. So come after me. I'm fair game, they're not. Governor Mike DeWine: (24:29) Let me say what else is not fair game. I'm the elected official. I'm the one who ran for office. I'm the one who makes the policy decisions. The members of my cabinet, Dr. Acton included, work exceedingly, exceedingly hard. But I set the policy. So when you don't like the policy, again, you can demonstrate against me. That is certainly fair game. But to bother the family of Dr. Acton, I don't think that's fair game. I don't think it's right. I don't think it's necessary to get your point across. You can get your point across very, very easily any day of the week with demonstrations against what I am doing or what policies that you disagree with. Governor Mike DeWine: (25:21) As I said the other day, one of my favorite presidents had on his desk a sign, "The buck stops here." Harry Truman. The buck stops with me, I'm the responsible person. I want to bring everybody up to date on what we're doing with testing, and this is something that we've had some, as I shared with you last week, some very, very good news. A contract with Thermo Fisher, Ohio manufacturers who really stepped up to make the swabs. We now have a very, very, aggressive testing program. We'll be able to test in a week up to 22,000 per day. This is a process that's being spread out throughout the State of Ohio, no matter what region you live in. So we're very, very, we're happy about that. Governor Mike DeWine: (26:34) This expedited testing is key really to protecting Ohioans, and it's particularly key as we go through this reopening phase of our economy. It will give us the ability to learn who's sick and determine how best to respond. With more tests, we will continue to emphasize the testing of patients who are most severely ill, patients who are moderately ill with underlying medical conditions, and individuals. Individuals who are critical to keeping us safe, and this would be our first responders, this would be our people in the medical community. Governor Mike DeWine: (27:13) It's important to remember that testing is only one, of course, response to the virus. It allows us to quickly identify individuals infected with COVID-19, promptly isolate them, and determine who they've been in class contact with. And that is a central part of what we are doing. As I indicated last week, we're standing up a group that we hope will reach about 1,800 people around the State of Ohio, who will do this process as far as identifying and tracing who may have been in contact with the person who's been infected. Governor Mike DeWine: (27:59) Increased testing capacity does not replace infection control and prevention. So I will emphasize what we all know matters. Keeping your distance, washing your hands, sanitizing surfaces where possible, and wearing a mask. What increased testing will do is help us identity those who were sick and who live and work in areas where the virus may rapidly spread so we can better protect our loved ones and those who are protecting them. Those areas include nursing homes and other congregate living settings, such as developmental centers, treatment facilities, homeless and domestic violence shelters, youth detention centers, and other areas where community outbreaks occur. Governor Mike DeWine: (28:44) So this is a chart, and Dr. Acton will spend some time and give you a much more intelligent and learned details about what this means. But this is the chart that is now policy, and this is going to provide a lot more testing around the State of Ohio. And again, as I said, Dr. Acton will explain it in more detail. We are significantly increasing testing, but our capacity remains not unlimited. It's not unlimited. Today, the Ohio Department of Health is issuing new guidance to do just that. Details will be available on the coronavirus website at coronavirus. ohio.gov. Governor Mike DeWine: (29:33) Early and rapid identification will help local health departments stop the spread of infection and provide treatment for those who need extensive medical care. This will isolate help isolate COVID-19 within a facility or a community by separating otherwise healthy residents and workers from those who are infected. And I would again call your attention, Eric, if you can put one back up a moment, as you pull this up take a look at the definition of congregate living settings. And you'll see the reference that is here, because congregate living settings are quite extensive. And we have a lot of our fellow Ohioans, our family members, our relatives who are in these facilities. So, it is not just nursing homes. Of all those, we have a significant number of the population who lives there. But also as it says on here, assisted living nursing centers, the Ohio veterans homes, two of those, residential facilities for mental health, substance use treatment, psychiatric hospitals, group homes, centers, facilities, group homes for people with intellectual disabilities, places for the homeless, domestic violence shelters, youth detention centers, prisons, and jails. And so when Dr. Acton gets to this and explains this grouping, just keep in mind that this is a large number of individuals in Ohio. And so now because of this testing capability, we're able to be a lot more aggressive in regard to this testing, and we're very happy to be able to do that. Governor Mike DeWine: (31:22) I'm going to stop at this point and turn it over to Lieutenant Governor. John? Lt. Gov. John Husted: (31:29) Thank you very much, Governor. Good afternoon. Last week we had some questions about the BMV and when the BMVs might be opening up again, and I have an update on that. As many of you know, there has been a period, thanks to the legislature's actions on House Bill 197 that allows the extension of deadlines on all expiration dates while the BMVs are closed. So, that issue as far as expiration dates has been resolved temporarily, thanks to that legislation. There are five BMVs across the state that are open to serve special needs where there is a required in-person visit during this time for essential services that people need. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (32:21) But the opening of the physical sites of all the BMVs around the state will not happen until later in May. There's no fixed date yet, and I'll explain why that is. They're currently working on a plan at each individual BMV, where the deputy registrars will reactivate the hiring of staff, make accommodations in the facility to ensure social distancing and safety measures, including the physical barriers and such. As you know from an experience at the BMV, there can be a small waiting area and people would be congregated where we couldn't get the social distancing in place. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (33:05) And so the reason for the late May opening is that we are in the process of doing something we were already underway with. That is the get in line online service, where we're allowing people to check in online and that way we can space people out, they can make the reservations, and we can work through that process to make it efficient for everybody as they begin to reengage. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (33:31) We had rolled the get in line online system out with the Innovate Ohio and the BMV teams working together to do that. We got through about 20 of them so far, but we're going to get all of them in that situation where you will be able to check in online prior to opening them up at the end of the month. So we don't want large crowds, we don't want everybody rushing back. We are creating an online system to do that so that we have an orderly process for when we restart the BMVs to avoid a large rush of people coming at the same time. And so, more information will be coming soon, but just wanted to make sure that you knew that. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (34:15) Additionally, a large number of services are already available online, and a variety of things like vehicle registration, vehicle plate replacement, etc. So all of those things are already available through the online portal and services. Please use those if you need them, and know that we suspended expiration dates until we get the BMVs opened back up and we have the online portal in place. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (34:43) As the Governor mentioned a little earlier, today is a big day for a lot of people who are going back to work. Many businesses and manufacturing, construction, and the entire distribution system, if they weren't already open, they are open. And that all of them are safer today because of the protocols and the way that we've learned how to operate these businesses more safely for employees and customers. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (35:12) I did want to emphasize something that the Governor mentioned on retail. It is open for appointment only services and curbside service as well. And Mother's Day's coming up, so flowers, jewelry, those kinds of things, you can access those businesses to purchase something nice for mom as we head towards Mothers Day. And those retailers will be happy to serve you and do it through the curbside and appointment only system. But the work groups are planning and working through these issues on restaurants and personal care, and we look forward delivering those to the Governor in the coming day. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (35:59) Another thing that I guess I want to emphasize as we do this, is that as has been said many times, we can do two things at once. We've learned how to open up aspects of our economy and also make sure people are doing so as safe as possible. We are learning how to live with coronavirus in our lives, as it will be with us for awhile. That graph that the Governor mentioned earlier about hospitalizations being on the way down, this is because of you. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (36:35) But I also want to say that we're in this position, and I want to give credit where credit's due. Dr. Acton sent out the early warning signs, the Governor took early action, and Ohio is in a much better shape today than a lot of states are because of those early actions. And when you look at the information about opening back up, Ohio is also, when you compare it to a lot of our surrounding states, also going to be on the early side of this. It's because of the good work that people of Ohio did and the early actions that we have taken as a state that puts us in a much better place today than we would otherwise be. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (37:16) And that's something to celebrate. It is. It's a victory for the people of the State of Ohio. And we learned a lot. We know more today than we did when it started. We know who's most vulnerable and we know how to protect those who are the most vulnerable. But as I heard a couple times over the weekend, trust us to do the right thing was something that I heard on a number of occasions from a number of conversations that I had. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (37:46) And I want you to know that this policy counts on it. This policy counts on the fact that the people of Ohio continue to do the right thing, because in the coming weeks as things begin to open up, the only way that we can keep that hospital trend where it needs to be on the decline, not seeing us rise back up, is for people to just do what's right. There's no other way. There's no other way for us to be successful. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (38:15) We are going to have to exercise personal responsibility, which creates the collective responsibility to reopen aspects of our economy and to keep all of us safe, particularly those who are most vulnerable. And I tell you, I truly appreciate all of the feedback that we get from legislatures, from business owners, from just people I have met over the years who are keeping the Governor and I very informed about what their views are on things. It's super helpful, and I want you to know that we are trusting you. We're building a plan that depends on it, and Ohio is in great shape today thanks to you. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (39:07) Now we have the opportunity throughout the month of May to continue to both have success on the health side and on the economic side. Governor? Governor Mike DeWine: (39:21) Lieutenant Governor, thank you. Dr Acton? Dr. Amy Acton: (39:23) Yes, thank you, Governor. Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Monday. Beautiful day. We'll start with our statistics. Today, at this point in Ohio, we have documented 20,474 cases, and this is in 88 counties. And our deaths now have reached 1,056. Next. Again, we are seeing here that we are having hospitalizations make up about 19% of our cases, requiring ICU is about 5%. Healthcare workers make up 16% of our cases. And we continue to see it skewing more or toward male, 56% of males. Next slide. Dr. Amy Acton: (40:21) As the governor said, we're standing our graph. I still think it might be hard to see at home, but go to our website, coronavirus.ohio. gov. You'll be finding a lot more data there. One of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor's main initiatives for our state, our whole enterprise is to set the data free, get you the information. We know a lot of researchers are interested and others, including the media, so we'll find more of this that you can see if you can see it better. Dr. Amy Acton: (40:50) But it's really important with the data to look over about a three week period. First of all, it takes about two weeks incubation period from the time you are infected to possibly as long as two weeks to have symptoms, and then it takes another week before you might seek care for those symptoms, either be hospitalized or reach out to your doctor. And we know of course that other things like being in the ICU or death are later. Dr. Amy Acton: (41:17) So by looking at three weeks and looking at rolling numbers, any one day might have a glitch for a number of days, and sometimes even by someone being absent and then reporting all their data over two days, no system is perfect. So when we really stretch it out and look at trends, this gives us a clearer picture. And as you can see, we have stayed relatively flat. We're having some ups and downs on most of these indicators, but no significant change. Next slide. Dr. Amy Acton: (41:47) As the governor said, why is this important that we have these statewide testing criteria? The answer to that is really that we still have... At this point we've tested a little over 1% of our population and we are increasing our testing capacity greatly. We've made some incredible strides, but it's important to know that when we don't have enough to just anyone can go to the drugstore and get a test, we really have to be able to have a way to... Would it be more helpful... I think the Governor's thinking it might be more helpful for our camera to focus on the bigger screen. Governor Mike DeWine: (42:26) It's bigger. Dr. Amy Acton: (42:26) I would agree with this and you can find all of this again on the website, but one of the main things with that is that it's important to be able to say to everyone to be consistent across the state. If one hospital is doing something different than another hospital, if one local health department is doing something different than another, how do all physicians and primary care providers know what to do? Dr. Amy Acton: (42:51) So what we do with our testing is as we always have, hospitalized folks, the sickest people were prioritized and that remains the same. And all healthcare workers, because we know keeping the healthcare system, the thing that we all worked so hard on to avert together, was to make sure that we can treat the sickest and not have our hospitals be overrun. So that remains the same, and priority number one. Dr. Amy Acton: (43:15) And priority number two we look first of all at Ohioans with symptoms, people who are actually sick at the time of presenting, and we've always looked more toward long term care and congregate settings. Congregate settings are any place where more than six people are sort of living together. And of course we know that makes them more at high risk, because it's easier to spread infection in small places where people can't always maintain effectively that six foot distance and do all the social distancing that we talk about. Dr. Amy Acton: (43:49) And that's a wide group of things from group homes to homeless shelters, youth detention centers to jails and prisons, veterans home, nursing facilities we've talked a lot about. But as we move forward in workplaces, you're also hearing about meat packing facilities around the country. So any community place where there is an outbreak or a hotspot will be treated as sort of something that we have to look at and prioritize. Dr. Amy Acton: (44:17) And that's what the part of priority two is. And that's important for us for a few reasons. First of all, local health departments will play a major role in this. And public health, the state health department is a lot like the CDC. We do a lot of the research and data gathering, bring best practices to the table, but everything real that happens in public health happens at the local level. It's really hand in hand with communities and hospitals and folks on the ground. Communities have to be able to make the best decisions for themselves. Dr. Amy Acton: (44:54) And so when we have an outbreak, perhaps like we've heard about in a meat packing plant, it really is that business getting together alongside the local health department, alongside a number of people in the community to solve a situation. And then they'll reach out to the state health department and we'll come alongside. In a nursing home that has an outbreak, similarly it'll be the local health department epidemiologists with the medical director the vehicle of that nursing home, and they'll try to problem solve. And if they need extra help, they'll reach out to us, we'll reach out to the CDC if we need more. And that's how our health system works. Dr. Amy Acton: (45:31) So basically priority two is all about getting those folks that are really high risk. And if there's an outbreak in a high risk place, not only are the employees and the folks there more at risk, but the whole community becomes at risk, because of course employees go home. They go home to their community, they go to the grocery store. And so as we move forward, we'll be prioritizing our testing as each situation needs for those high risk folks. Dr. Amy Acton: (45:59) We also are going to always look out for our first responders. There's this means our infrastructure workers, our critical workers. And this will be our first line, EMS and our firefighters as well. Also, people that are higher at risk are 65 and older or those with preexisting health conditions, and all of those will be in priority number two. Dr. Amy Acton: (46:20) Three is for our hospitals. As we move on and open up more and more of those procedures we've delayed and get back to our primary care, it's really important that hospitals have the ability to test folks coming in. They'll often do that testing for you if you're a patient coming for a procedure. You'll probably get that testing done up to three days in advance so they'll have to get the results. Some procedures won't need it. If you're getting perhaps maybe a shot in your hip for some arthritis, we might not need to test you for COVID. But if you're getting a high risk procedure, like a bronchoscopy, we definitely want to test you. So those decisions will be guided and each hospital will give patients that guidance. Dr. Amy Acton: (47:03) So what happens as we have more testing beyond these priorities? The most important thing there is that we'll be reaching out and looking more at people who are mildly ill in our community who aren't in those high risk, preexisting health conditions. It would be your average healthy individual who might be having symptoms, but doesn't need hospitalized. And that testing we really don't have enough for yet, but certainly if your condition were to change, you would reach out to your provider. Dr. Amy Acton: (47:32) All testing still needs a provider to diagnose it and say you need it. So, you can't do this without a provider's order. And eventually, even asymptomatic people will be tested. So that's sort how we go from the highest priority to the lowest priority. People are thrilled to have these criteria. It helps our whole state kind of work in tandem. So that's my sort of spiel, Governor. And all of this is on our website and we'll certainly be... Dr. Amy Acton: (48:03) ... spiel, Governor, and all of this is on our website and we'll certainly be glad to walk people through it as this moves forward. Dr. Amy Acton: (48:08) Next, I want to talk a little bit about some other data. This is our testing capacity. And we, all were just on a phone call with governors from around the country with the Vice President and the White House team. And we see that states all over feel that the month of May is going to be a big month of movement in the world of testing. And we certainly are pushing to be at the front end of that. We've seen our daily testing go up from about three to 4,000 tests in Ohio to at the end of last week, near a little over 6,000 tests per day. And we are going to be the tracking that. We'll be tracking that for our state moving forward and we'll also be providing that data. Dr. Amy Acton: (48:52) We tend to do about 41 tests per 100,000 population. Our ultimate goal in an ideal world would be to be a little over 150 per 100,000 population. Cumulatively we have tested about 1.3% of the Ohio population and as you know, Ohio was slower to get the test, and [inaudible 00:49:15] we're catching up rapidly. We've made tremendous progress. We have a team fighting day and night and you'll see, I'll be excited to share as well the lieutenant governor progress we make there. Dr. Amy Acton: (49:27) Finally, I think that's the end of our slides. I really do want to say to folks, moving forward, we did miraculous things together as a state. We had the [inaudible 00:49:41] action and we headed off the disaster of hospitals being overwhelmed. We also did something important. We had time as a state, as your [inaudible 00:49:53] health departments, as hospitals to prepare for a disease no one knew. We know that every day we'll learn more and more about this disease, but we know enough now that we've been able to sort of set up the preparations to move forward. Our job moving forward will be to monitor these numbers, certainly look for outbreaks, do extensive contact tracing and testing around those outbreaks breaks, and really try to decrease the spread of this disease. Dr. Amy Acton: (50:20) But as the governor said, we will be living with coronavirus for the foreseeable future and so, so much more now will come to how we as individuals handle it. Again, Coronavirus.ohio.gov the best tips for you. It's where we began, it's where we are now. How can we as individuals protect ourselves and protect our families and also as individuals protect each other. We gave you lots of tips there, it really will be up to how we handle things, and as communities and businesses handle things, but we have a lot more information. Don't forget that as a resource. Dr. Amy Acton: (50:59) We'll be here every step of the way to try to give you the best information we have as we know it. Thank you. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (51:06) Dr. Acton, thank you very much. We're ready for questions. Andrew W.: (51:15) Thank you, [inaudible 00:51:17] Andrew [Wilcuggins 00:51:17] with the Associated Press, thank you for comments about the media, we appreciate that. Governor, I went to a big box store Saturday in Columbus where maybe one in 10 customers was wearing a mask. There were similar reports of uneven mask wearing at businesses around the state this past [inaudible 00:03:37], and additional on Saturday night near Dayton police from several departments dispersed a crowd of several people who had gathered their cars together, and in Akron on Sunday night there was a gathering of dozens of people that unfortunately resulted in a shooting. My question is, what are your concerns that your appeal last week, that Ohioans have to stick together as the state reopens by wearing masks and continuing to practice social distancing is either being lost or frankly being ignored. And what if anything can you do about it at this point? Governor Mike DeWine: (52:14) Well, first of all, it is in our hands. It's in the hands of my fellow citizens and in each individual decision that we make impacts that. We've talked to this before, but this is the kind of the rare case or different case where what each individual does, it's not just about protecting themselves or their family, it's about protecting people that they know and many times it's about protecting people that [inaudible 00:52:50] know at all. Again, there's legitimate reasons why this one might not, couldn't physically or for other reasons wear a facial covering going into it to a retail store, but the fact remains that what you're doing, when you do that is you're saying that you care about other people and that you want to protect them because you're not wearing that really to protect yourself, you're wearing that to protect other people. And so that message we're going to continue to do everything that we can to try to get across. Governor Mike DeWine: (53:34) As far as gathering of people, well this is, it's difficult. The police cannot be everywhere. The health authority part obviously cannot be everywhere. So a lot of this is falling on our shoulders as citizens. In how we [inaudible 00:53:53] how deal with this. So this is a, it's a work in progress. The numbers that we showed, when I showed these numbers up here a little bit ago, those numbers, we want to keep them going in the right direction. Governor Mike DeWine: (54:08) And the numbers of the hospitalizations that are trending downward have been for a few weeks. We got to keep them going in that direction. And we know that when you open up and you do more, well naturally you're going to see a spike in cases, but we also know, we have it within our own power to control that to some extent and to dramatically cut those down. So I would just again, appeal to every Ohioan it's not about what you're being told to do more and more it's totally up to you, but it is the right thing to do. Governor Mike DeWine: (54:48) And I think as summer is here or spring and [inaudible 00:54:52] it's the summer and the natural inclination is to go out and want to do things and there's nothing wrong with that. We all want to do that. Fran and I go out and walk. But people just, we need to remember that what we do impacts others. So it's a, we're going to continue to do talk about it and our ability to move fast. Our ability to get Ohio open. And for my friends who think Ohio is moving slow, I understand. We have other friends who think we're moving too fast, but to those who think that we're moving too slow, if you would look around most of the states [inaudible 00:55:36] us are behind Ohio. Indiana's probably a little bit ahead, but if you look at the other surrounding states, surrounding us, most of them are behind what we're doing. So we're taking a chance, we're taking a chance to move forward. We just need everyone to cooperate so we can continue to open up and continue to get our economy moving again. Laura Bishoff: (56:08) Good afternoon, Governor, it's Laura Bishoff, Dayton Daily News. Kind of piggybacking on Andrew's question. The stay safe order allows you to go out and participate in things that are open, like going to work if it's open, et cetera, going big box store, going grocery shopping. But it also says that you shouldn't be having any meetings of more than 10 people, that your gatherings should be limited to your own family household. So my question is when can we go to, get [inaudible 00:56:43] Zoom club meeting, and go back to having gatherings amongst ourselves, [inaudible 00:56:53] backyard barbecue, that sort of thing. Governor Mike DeWine: (56:58) Laura, look, I mean as a practical matter, people have done what they felt was right throughout this. And they've done what they want to do throughout this. I mean this is not a case where police come in and tell you, you've got 11 people. I just don't think that has ever been occurring. Governor Mike DeWine: (57:19) So ultimately, it's going to be up to the individuals as [inaudible 00:57:23] we forward. The virus just as much with us as it has ever been. And we do know that we have more vulnerable people among us. People, because of their age, because of their medical condition. But we also know that what we do can impact other people. 25 year old who wants to get together with their friends. I fully understand all that. The only thing that that 25 year old has to be thinking about is, if they're not worried about getting it themselves, they have to also think about who they're going to come into contact with when they go back home, who they're going to see you over the weekend, are they going to see their grandma or they're going to see an aunt, they going to see somebody who has some other medical condition. Governor Mike DeWine: (58:13) So ultimately, Laura, we're all in this as individuals making our own individual decisions, which then it's related into numbers that we see up on the board and number of people who end up with COVID-19. [inaudible 00:58:31] with this for a while unless some miracle occurs. We hope for the miracle. I'm an optimist, but we're trying to do two things at the same time, get the economy moving, but also stay safe. It comes down to what you decide or what other people decide in their individual lives. Randy: (58:54) Good afternoon, Governor, Randy [inaudible 00:58:57] with the [inaudible 00:58:58]. As we reopen today of at least a general office environment, et cetera. There seemed to be a lot of hesitancy of employers to abandon work from home. It looks like they're gradually going to try and get back to the office. As we do that, you just outlined an expanded testing program that to this point is ranked 46th per capita in the United States. Do you think what you have in place is enough to keep Ohioans protected as you reopened retail next week? Governor Mike DeWine: (59:28) [inaudible 00:11: 32], Randy, I think that talking about being 46, we're not going to be 46 for very long. I hadn't seen that figure but we are ramping up. It is a priority, we're going after it. We're focused on this because we know that this has to be done. 1800 people out there doing the tracing. So numbers are dramatically going to change and you're going to watch the chart and I'm going to watch it too and we're going to see it's going to go up. So yeah, we feel good about where we are with testing, with the potential of testing. We're not where we want to be today and the numbers, but we have the capacity now to do this and we have the supply chain in place and we have Ohio manufacturers who are backing us, and yeah, we're moving forward and we're happy where we are, and we're going to get it done. Randy: (01:00:32) Governor, how many 1800 contact tracers have been hired? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:00:39) We're early on. I believe that Dr. Acton said the last survey we took there was about 680 but I may be off on that, do you remember Dr. Acton, where we are on that? Dr. Amy Acton: (01:00:52) I don't have those numbers with me, Governor, but I would like to address contact tracing later this week, and give that [inaudible 00:13:00]. Governor Mike DeWine: (01:00:59) Randy, we'll get those numbers for you. I mean, it is a work in progress. I mean, every health department has tracers, these are people who've done it before. So this is not something new. What is new is the quantity that we're going to need and the number of people that we're going to need. And look at this for the long haul. We want to hire, ideally hire people who will be able to be with us for a year or so as we move forward. Randy: (01:01:27) Thank you. Laura Hancock: (01:01:31) Hello, this is Laura Hancock from Cleveland.com I have a question about the working groups. We know that there are a lot of executives in the working groups of large hairstyle chains and restaurants and restaurant owners. Are there any lower level employees, the people who are going to be touching the general public and more exposed and more likely to transmit COVID on these groups and also will the proceedings be public? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:02:03) Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. John may know the answer to that. Look, we tried to be geographically diverse. We tried be very diverse as far as the different sizes, and every employer has the [inaudible 01:02:21] to stay open, to protect their employees, to be able to attract employees. And what is different today, and we've gone through different times and period. [inaudible 01:02:32] different companies had a hard time attracting employees. But today, what we have is if any company is not protecting their employees, they're not going to people able to [inaudible 01:02:40] to come to work. They're not going to be able to get anybody to stay at work. So there's a real [inaudible 01:02:45] for companies to not only do the right thing and most of them do the right thing because it's the right thing. But if anybody is inclined not to do the right thing, there's a whole economic incentive is to try to run a restaurant or run a barber shop or whatever it is in a way that is as safe as humanly possible. Governor Mike DeWine: (01:03:03) John, you have anything to add. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (01:03:04) Yeah. Thank you, Governor. Laura, just to give you a little background about what the goal was here. When we've been doing the working groups, it's always been important that we have businesses that represents the diversity of that particular industry. Geography from a geography point of view, from a type of business point view, small restaurant, a chain restaurant, a fine dining, fast food, so we have all of those represented. We took appointments from the general assembly for this group from the majority and minority caucuses of both of bodies, and we also have health officials that are on this to make sure that the health folks are looking at the protocols to make sure that they make sense from a health perspective and then the business folks who look at it to make sure that it's practical. And then those are in the process of being merged together, presently to make sure that that recommendation the governor's desk for his review as soon as it can be put together. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (01:04:10) We can get you a list of the people that are on here. That is not a problem at all. The press team should be able to get that to you pretty easily. But that's the nature of [inaudible 01:04:23] the goal of it was, what the goal of the group was. And why it was assembled as it is. Laura Hancock: (01:04:31) Okay, thanks. Kevin Landers: (01:04:36) Kevin Landers, WBNS-10 TV. My question is for Dr. Acton. My question is as businesses and restaurants open, let's just assume there are 50 people in one group, one area. One of those people is asymptomatic. How safe is it to go to work or to eat at that restaurant, if you have a mask and you wash your hands? And as governor mentioned, as we open up businesses, we will likely see a spike in cases. What is an acceptable spike? Thank you. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:05:21) Hi, Kevin. So, I want to be completely, hope people remember what this virus is because I think it's been very easy as we think and we move forward to kind of forget some of the basics we've known from the beginning. COVID-19 is highly infectious and we as a population have not had it yet. Most of us have probably not had it yet. So there is no way around the fact that as we leave, as Laura was describing earlier, small groups of people, the numbers we have seen now up to this point are based on a large majority being home. We know people have been out and about more in the last two weeks. We can tell that just by traffic data. But as we go more and more out, more and more of us will be exposed to this virus. It's essential that all of us do everything we can to protect ourselves and to protect others. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:06:29) If we think that going out is going to look the way it looked six weeks ago than we are not being completely honest with ourselves. We're not accepting the reality that there is a new virus. And I know there are folks who talk about the fact that how many deaths there are, but I think it's important for us to just be respectful of the virus and say this virus can make people very sick of all ages. And the sickness often is lasting three and four weeks before people recover. And the symptoms people have with it are things like extreme difficulty breathing. So I don't know, I say this not to be a fear monger, I say this to be, I'm not the virus, this is a virus and I want to describe this virus to us. And what we know that keeps it from spreading is keeping as much social distance, six feet, washing our hands, now we know that wearing a mask can help. Not perfectly, but pretty good. As when I wear it to not give it to you. When we both wear it, there's a much less likely a chance that it will not be spread. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:07:40) So even if you were in a place like say sitting in a restaurant and two people, the server was protected and the customer was protected. That really is helpful. But the question is how much will we do those things? So I can't say enough, every state is wrestling with how do we resume life, but how do we innovate and change? How do we as people accept what we can do? How do we as businesses do everything in our power as businesses are trying to do and some have done wonderful jobs. We can still eat. We can go to the grocery store because people set up new ways of doing it. That's what should be the conversation right now. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:08:23) There is no perfect way to go back to our old world. We have to accept that we're living in a new world and we have to accept that any one of us could be carrying it, not knowing it. And every decision we make individually and every way we do our new work world has to take those realities. And I'm talking reality, big reality, not Dr. Acton reality, not any health department's reality, it's just the reality of this virus. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:08:52) And so I will say that every business, we are talking to and what we're trying to do is come up with the very best practices. So that was we can [inaudible 01:09:02] people the freedoms that we know they want so much, but do it in a safe way. And it has to be a safe way. Businesses, most business owners, again, want to protect their workers. Most of my friends and family who owned businesses, want their business to succeed but want it to succeed and do well. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:09:21) The worst thing we can do when we don't wear these masks or we pretend this virus is not here and this virus spreads rapidly and there are many, many outbreaks. People will panic and they'll be afraid again. And we don't want to get to a place where we have to be afraid. That's not going to help us move forward. So the advice we're giving from our health apartment from the CDC, from our employers is to help people have the maximum freedoms of our lives back. [inaudible 00:21:50]. Folks, this is going to take, coming down the mountain is a lot harder than going [inaudible 01:09:57]. And this is a journey, we're all taking it together and I am asking you, every one of you to learn what you can about this virus, and everything you can do. Use your judgment with your community, help those who can't be helped, help those people who still, it's not safe to go to the grocery store for. And you need to wear this to protect that worker who's there working on our behalf and that's the right thing to do. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:10:23) Thank you. Jessie: (01:10:28) This is Jessie [inaudible 01:10:30] with the Cincinnati [inaudible 01:10:31] my question is for the governor. There's a proposal from lawmaker in Southwest Ohio to make the health orders recommendations and perhaps curb the ability if the department of health to make those. Would you veto any legislation that would restrict department of health [inaudible 01:10:49] COVID-19, are you open to more legislative oversight of that? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:10:57) I would just have to see the language. I've not really looked at it's language. Certainly the legislature has every right to look at any law that exists today, but we have to do deal with this problem. And this is a huge, huge, huge problem. So I'll reserve any comment until I actually see the legislation. But we need to be able to deal with the problem. And look, we hope that after putting these working groups together, and they come up with the best practices and people follow those best practices. And Ohioans remember as Dr. Acton says that this virus is out there. We hope that we don't get to a situation where we fall back and have to issue additional regulations. I mean, this is, right now, it's always been with the people, the state of Ohio, it's certainly now more than ever with the people of the state of Ohio. So we hope we would never- Governor Mike DeWine: (01:12:03) Now more than ever with the people of the state of Ohio. So we hope we would never have to use those regulations. I'd just add one thing that I think sometimes we put people in categories, people who get it and people that die. There are people in between and what we've seen is that people can get very, very, very sick. I've seen it and it's not... Some of this can go on for a month, longer than a month and has a real impact on people. Very, very, very tough for some people and they never show up on the death because they don't die, but it can be very, very tough. Thank you. Jim Provence: (01:12:51) Hello, Governor. Jim Provence with the Toledo Blade. Coming from Toledo, we've been hearing a lot from people who live and recreate on Lake Erie. Your order does not specifically mention, as far as I can tell, marinas or boating. Michigan has lifted its order as it applies to recreational boating. Can that occur if social distancing is practiced? Also, can shore vacation rentals proceed with bookings for this year? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:13:24) [inaudible 01:13:24] turn to the Lake Erie fishermen. I fancy myself a fisherman. John is probably more of a Lake Erie fishermen than I am because I grew up in Southwest Ohio, but certainly people can go fishing and they can certainly go fishing on Lake Erie. But John, I'll turn it to you. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (01:13:47) Yeah, I can say that marinas have been in the order from the very beginning as places that you can operate. And then obviously, all of social distancing guidelines and the recommendations on group size would then dictate everything after that. So, there's never been a prohibition against marinas operating and people having access to their watercraft. That has been allowed from the very beginning and in this particular situation, now everything else gets guided by the social distancing and CDC guidelines on group sizes, things like that. Governor Mike DeWine: (01:14:30) Jim, I think as we look towards this summer, more and more people up along Lake Erie and along the Ohio River and other places, I think from a health point of view, what you worry about is big gatherings of people. It comes down to social distancing, it comes down to the gatherings of large number of people. Most fishermen don't want to be around a lot of other fishermen so that's not ever been a high worry, but it's when you got a bunch of people who are partying and we understand that, but that's where you get the danger. That's where you get the real challenge in regard to the spread. Not that fishermen out fishing by herself or himself, or even with a friend or two. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (01:15:27) In the way that I have seen the order, we dealt with this with campgrounds, and we dealt with this with other provisions in the order. I will check to make sure on that. If you give me the rest of this conference I'll have an answer for you on that Jim just to make sure that I don't [inaudible 01:15:47] that I'm missing. Adrian Robins: (01:15:54) Adrian Robins, NBC 4, questions for Dr. Acton. The New York Times is reporting in an internal document, it showed that the US would have a steady increase of cases and deaths, doubling daily deaths and four times the amount of cases a day by June 1st. We haven't talked a lot about our curve, but does Ohio have predictions of what this next month could look like for us and is it possible that our numbers could mirror these numbers that the federal emergency management [inaudible 01:16:25] that the US will have? Dr. Amy Acton: (01:16:31) Thank you, Adrian. I appreciate your reporting and sorry that you had that situation. I do not have projections. I don't think there is a model at this juncture that can allow me to say, and I'm not sure that anyone can fully say, exactly what the future will hold. I think that's one of the harder things for people at home and all of us to live with is that it's not that this is an experiment, but the fact is we're in a place where this has never been done before. We have never had the ability to protect against a surge the way we did and we did that successfully. But as you're seeing the very best scientists in the world are trying to figure out all over the world, learning from each other. Sometimes we've had the blessing of seeing it hit other places first and watch what happens. But I think every scientist is going to be [inaudible 01:17:32] now. In real time, the good news is we have more data. There are things we never measured before and now we have systems to measure it. All of us are going to be watching as we go back into our lives and livelihoods and turn that dimmer switch up. We're going to have to watch these indicators and see what happens. I do think we will see more and I think it's hard for people to understand. Even when we say deaths, we said something like in a worst flu season in the United States, we have 60,000 deaths. Honestly, I think we could do better than that. But that's been a very, very, very bad flu season. We've seen that amount of deaths in our country in six weeks. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:18:16) We've seen more than 2,500 Americans die in a day and when you put that against other losses of life, that's a hard thing to think about. And so I think we have to, again be honest. This virus is a pandemic, a global pandemic and we do know these numbers that we're going to see multiple peaks and crests. Our goal here in Ohio, and I'm sure everyone's is around the world, is to really try to manage the virus, really maximize how well we do in it, in a situation that no one has really experienced quite this way before. And that's what we'll do. That's what the governor is doing. That's what the Lieutenant governor is doing is we're trying to put everything in place so that we can watch it. And then with you, with all our partners from hospitals to mayors to County commissioners to all the local folks, really try to make the best steps as we move forward and that's what we'll do. So I cannot predict the future. I do know as we get about, we will definitely see more spread. WHIOTV: (01:19:26) Hi governor. Johnny from HWIOTV. As Ohioans go back to work, we've heard from a fair number of people who say they are skeptical that their employers are going to be able to do satisfactorily meet all your guidelines to keep them safe. If they arrive back at the job [inaudible 01:19:51] have to be there but they just don't see protections that you're asking for. What options do they have without putting their job at risk, who did they call? Who did they talk to? Can that really be done to keep them safe? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:20:07) Well it certainly can. They can call their local health department. We have 113 health departments in the state. They certainly can do that. I will tell you that when we were making the distinction between essential businesses and non-essential, people who continued to work, if people did not think that they were safe, they were calling. So John, I don't know if you want to add to that, but the rules are set down. They're easy to follow, they're easy to understand. And businesses, when they start back up... We are very, very concerned about the employees. Employees have to feel comfortable [inaudible 01:20:51] in a safe position. While I said there were some businesses or some employees who didn't feel comfortable, I do know that a lot of businesses did a phenomenal job in the last month or so in improving their safety to deal with the Coronavirus. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (01:21:11) Yeah. Thanks, governor. Jim, fortunately most of what it takes to keep yourself safe is really something that you are empowered to do. Regularly washing your hands and creating distance, the six foot distance, between you and another person and wearing a mask or face covering of some type. Those are things that you can do on your own to make sure that you personally are being protected. The employer has to go above and beyond that if you can't do those things. So they need to build a barrier, they also need to do the regular disinfecting of the facility. If you do not feel that it's being done appropriately... Most cases the employers want to do the right thing, but if you have a number of employees, maybe not every employee wants to cooperate with those standards. Lt. Gov. John Husted: (01:22:06) So first let your HR department know or your supervisor that there's something in your situation that's making you feel uncomfortable or unsafe and hopefully they will address those. But you also can call the local health department and the local health department will come out and inspect and enforce the rules. That's the process that's always been. You don't have to give a name, you don't have to tell them who are or threaten your employment. But the local health department is the enforcement entity on these things. So there's a series of things that you can do. First, what you do personally to keep yourself safe, what your employer can do if not every employee is cooperating and then if the employer themselves is not seeing this through, then your next option is your local health department. Iran Hami: (01:23:03) Hello everyone. Iran Hami. [inaudible 01:23:06] Iowa. Governor, my question's for you. What sort of criteria has the state set that would force us to go backwards into a stricter stay at home order after much of these businesses start opening? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:23:22) We've not sat a specific place that we would do that. We certainly hope that we do not get to that point where we have to do that. We are going to publish these numbers every single day. This is something that, if it occurs, all Ohioans are going to be able to monitor every single day and they're going to know what collectively is happening. So As Dr. Acton likes to say, we're on a journey and we hope we never get to the point where we have to turn back. That would not be what we want. I'm confident that Ohioans will be able to continue the social distancing, make the right decisions that people who are particularly at risk will stay home. Their own decision to do that. Limit their trips out and just be very, very careful because there are some among us who are certainly much more vulnerable and need to be extra careful. Andy Chow: (01:24:35) Hi everyone. Andy Chow with Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. I think this question is mostly for Dr. Acton. I wanted to talk about the idea of ramping up testing in these new protocols. I'm sure you're expecting to see an increase in confirmed case numbers. How do you as a state sort of gauge those numbers against increases that we've seen before? What's your message to a public who might start logging in and seeing these case numbers go up, but that might be more likely because of ramped up testing and not because the virus is spreading? Dr. Amy Acton: (01:25:10) That's right. That is a really great question. We've known that we've not been able to test all the cases that are out there and we will even learn about deaths that we haven't known that were out there in retrospect. So it's really important to try as best you can to compare apples to apples. If you just look at case numbers going up and I said cases went up by a thousand today but I did a hundred thousand more tests. That might be the reason the numbers went up. I'm testing a lot more. I think it's really important because we are being compared and we're looking at how many cases a state has as a raw number so we'll always share that. But other numbers can be very important. One of them is something called the positivity rate, which is the amount of positive tests over sort of all the tests you've done and all the negatives you have done. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:26:05) So those sorts of numbers allow for it to take out the fact of how much tests you're doing but keeping the ratio the same. Positivity rate in Ohio right now is at about 11% and we're going to be adding more graphs where people can actually watch positivity rate change. Another great measure that states... I say this where the reasons we didn't start three months ago with these measures is nobody had known the virus [inaudible 01:26:32] measured yet but cross states were all starting to say and the CDC is saying COVID-like illnesses. So we have a surveillance system that exists in emergency rooms. So anyone who presents with symptoms that look like COVID-19 and as seen in an ED is a really good indicator because it takes usually a lot longer for us to find out about something. Dr. Amy Acton: (01:26:58) But you can actually see ED visits almost on a daily basis. So that's a very earlier sort of indication of which direction we're going versus waiting for someone to need [inaudible 01:27:09] need to have died to count you. So we're going to look at things like that. We're going to be looking at all sorts of test numbers, data on contact tracing just to see how processes are working. The overall essence of this will also look at [inaudible 01:27:27] which is how much one person infects another person. We know the beginning of this disease, it could be three to four or five people in some of the early studies. Right now in Ohio when we were staying more at home we really got that number down to just hovering about one person giving it to one person. And so we're going to watch that number over time. We'll really look at a number of indices. No one thing. We'll also hopefully look at some economic indices as well. All of that is really interesting information and especially for policy makers who have to make rules really hard decisions. Thank you. Karen Jenson: (01:28:10) Good afternoon. Governor. Karen Jensen, WLWT Cincinnati. We're hearing from a lot of 1099 employees who are falling through the unemployment cracks saying they're unable to get help from the state. It's been since March. Many are dipping into their savings if they have any. Many of these are hairstylists, gym owners, what's being done to help them and can you give them any specific dates of when they can go back to work or even just a timeframe: another week, two weeks, a month? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:28:40) Yeah. I'll start off and then I'll flip it over to John. We have working groups that should be reporting in the next few days in regard to all those. We understand that [inaudible 01:28:54] sole proprietors, many times they have employees. These are small businessmen and women who have really been hurting. We know that they don't make any money if they're not working. We understand that. What they present is obviously a challenge in the sense that they're working very, very closely with people. I got a report yesterday or this morning I guess in regard to some of these working groups, we'll have some information in the next few days on where we're headed. We want to get back to work but we also want to do it obviously in a safe way. John? Lt. Gov. John Husted: (01:29:33) Yes. Thanks, governor. I'll try to go through this quickly. Right now if you're a 1099 and you can apply for the benefits that you would get under the CARES act. The CARES act did provide for unemployment services for those individuals. Unfortunately we don't have a system for that, so we have to build a brand new one. Now we're at the point that you can apply. People have been doing that for a little over a week. We expect that sometime around mid May, those will be processed and people will begin receiving money from them. We're in a position in Ohio that we had to build a new system. It's not going as fast certainly as I know the need has been created, but those benefits will be backdated to the individual from the first date they were eligible. And so that's the quick summary of it. That they can apply. Now the benefits will be backdated. They should [inaudible 01:30:36] getting processed around mid may. Speaker 2: (01:30:42) Hello governor, this questions for the Lieutenant governor. Sir, the [inaudible 01:30:53] where less than a week ago and the [inaudible 01:30:56] that were positive.. What's your take on the process for the future? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:31:10) I'm going to turn that over ultimately to the current secretary of state, Frank LaRose. I know that Frank and I talk though frequently and he is thinking about what the process should would look like. I would say the mail in ballot process for the primary would work [inaudible 01:31:29] so as you could expect something to do that you were really creating on the run and for the most part that system worked. Fortunately in Ohio we have a system that provides an all of the above opportunity for voters. We have mail in ballots where everybody in November will be sent an absentee ballot request in the mail. They will be able to fill it out and send it in and vote without ever leaving their home. That's going to be baked into Ohio's system and that will be there and that works and so nobody will have to physically go anywhere to vote in Ohio this year. Governor Mike DeWine: (01:32:11) But we've also had traditionally in person early voting at the local board of elections and then our precinct based system on election day. As the governor has said it's premature to begin to decide what November is going to look like. It's not premature for any of us to think about it. [inaudible 01:32:30] your question is on mark. We all need to think about it. I know that the secretary of state has some ideas that he's put together on this and so I'm sure in the coming weeks and months that obviously the progression of the virus and well we do that will dictate some of the decisions regarding the election. Ohio Latino TV: (01:32:57) [inaudible 01:32:57] Ohio Latino TV. Thank you so much. Governor Mike DeWine: (01:33:05) Saddened to hear that Ohio football legend Don Shula has died. Born in Lake County, John Carroll University. He served our country as a member of Ohio national guard. He played seven seasons in the NFL, two with the Cleveland Browns. He earned a spot in the pro football hall of fame [inaudible 01:33:26] the only coach to lead his team to an undefeated season in the Super Bowl era. Fran and I extend our sincerest condolences to his wife Mary Anne and their children Donna, Sharon and Mike. Want to close with a video that Jeremy Guy, assistant commissioner of the Mid-American Conference or the MAC for short, recently sent us. Many of our fine universities in Ohio are part of the MAC. University of Akron, Bowling Green, Kent State, Miami, Ohio university, and University of Toledo. This video reminds us of what we can look forward to by practicing social distancing, what the future will bring. Merritt? Governor Mike DeWine: (01:35:24) We'll see you all tomorrow at two o'clock. Thank you.