Hamilton County officials give update on latest COVID-19 cases, trends – WLWT Cincinnati

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Yeah. Okay. Afternoon, everyone. The Ohio Mass today was sent to me by Symphony Symphony. Cynthia Mathias. And we appreciate that very much. And people are just coming up with all kinds of designs. I think she said this is a Joann fabrics design. Uh, the time we’re in today is a is a high universities Heritage College of osteopathic medicine. So we we thank all the folks who are there and all the graduates and professors who help our health care system in the state of Ohio. Let me start by thanking Senate President Abd off Speaker Cup members of the General Assembly for their leadership and assistance in the controlling boards. Recent approval of 419,000 uh, $419 million In Cares Act funding to help our fellow Ohioans. This money will be used for small business grants, 116 125 million rent and utility assistance. That’s 50 million grants to bars and restaurants. 37 a half million help for hospitals. 62 million in our colleges and universities. That’s 100 million and support for Ohio’s world class art organizations as well as non profits on. That’s a total of 25 million. Again, I thank them all the members that controlling board, uh, for getting this approved, it will do a lot of good. One week from today is Election day. And so we have the Secretary of State ready. Thio, talk to us and give us kind of report. Frank Larose, Mr. Secretary, I could see it. Looks like you’re in your office with a view of the state House there. That’s a pretty nice view. Uh, tell us where we are. A week out. Well, thank you so much, Governor. You’re right. It is a week before election day. But of course, we’re three weeks into election month in Ohio and we’ve already seen record breaking numbers of Ohio is taking advantage of early and absentee voting. You can see the countdown clock behind the six days 17 hours, 29 minutes and 40 seconds until the polls open on the morning of Tuesday, November 3rd. And there are a couple of things I just wanted to talk about today. Governor, I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity. Thio. Discuss a few of these things. Of course, way back in the spring, we faced an unprecedented challenge in Ohio’s elections. Officials rolled up their sleeves to make sure that we were ready. We launched what we call the ready for November task course where we had a weekly meeting that was shared here on the Ohio Channel. We set a few key objectives. Of course, one thing that we wanted to do is make sure that we got plenty of people registered to vote because it’s hard to get voter registration done in the traditional ways. And I’m happy to report that we surpassed eight million registered voters in the state of Ohio. That’s something that we’re really proud of. We also knew that we needed the launching unprecedented effort to recruit plenty of poor workers. I’m happy to say that over 140,000 Ohioans came to our website and signed up people workers and as we stand today, well over 50,000 of them have been trained and are ready to go toe open our polling locations in a safe and accessible way on Tuesday morning, November 30. One of the other things that we really focused on was trying to maximize early and absentee voting, and I’ll tell you that has been a humongous success. We have seen a doubling in the number of absentee ballots that we’ve seen in past years, and we’ve seen it triple as faras early voting goes. And so, by all accounts, this has been a very successful effort. And, of course, we have to make sure that right health and safety protocols were put in place. So we worked with the Ohio Department of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control to put in place a 61 point checklist so that every voter and every poll worker can feel safe and comfortable coming to participate in early in person voting as well as Election day voting. Now the bottom line is this. There have been some some some folks wondering. Will Election Day happen as scheduled? Of course. Will Election Day is unchangeable? The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is set in both state and federal law. It has been unchanged since 18 43. You can contrast that with primary elections which routinely do move over the years, and we know that as a result of the pandemic, some adjustments had to be made to the way that Ohio conducted the primary back in March and, of course, concluding at the end of April. But the general Election day is that, and it will not change. The polls will open at 6:30 a.m. on November 3rd, and that’s important for people to know they’ll be open until 7 30 that night. Now, just like I said, we’re all excited about Election Day. But you don’t have to wait for Election Day because in Ohio we have election month. In fact, voting continues today. Voting continues tomorrow. Voting will be happening on Thursday, Friday and as well, a Saturday and Sunday. We want a very few states in the nation that offers weekend early voting. Ohio has that. We have Saturday early, buddy. We’ve got Sunday early, Buddy. We’ve got convenient evening hours this week. In fact, on Monday, the day before the election, early voting continues until two that day, and it’s it’s something that oh, islands are taking advantage of and really massive numbers. Now, I talked about that health and safety plan that we put together. We launched this two months ago, a 61 point checklist. Every board of elections is required to follow that checklist. What that will make sure of is that again, if you feel comfortable going to the grocery store, you should feel comfortable coming to your polling location. Ah, lot of the same precautions are in place. You’re going to see 6 ft of social distancing. You’re going to see personal protective equipment being worn by both voters and, of course, our poll workers. Any elections observers that maybe there as well you’re going to see common sense things, like having a door in separate from a door out where that’s possible, You’re going to see something as simple as a doorstop so that people aren’t touching the door handle all day long, Of course, wiping down the services. We’ve been able to feel massive quantities of personal protective equipment because of patriotic Ohio companies that have stepped up and answered the call and donated TPE. But we also took the vast majority of our federal dollars and push them out to the to the counties so that they could spend those dollars to procure the necessary PPE to make sure that it’s safe. I talked about us wanting to maximize early and absentee voting. That’s been a humongous success. Governor and I actually have new numbers to report. As of today, 3.2 million voters have already requested an empty about 3.2 million Ohioans have already requested empty belt now. Contrast that to four years ago, the number was 1.6 million. So we’ve clearly seen a doubling in absentee voting in Ohio. The bottom line is this. Today is effectively the last day. The law says you could wait until Saturday, but that’s a bad idea. Today is a effectively the last day to request your absentee ballot. So if you want to be one of those millions of Ohioans who is voting from the safety and comfort of home, today is the day to do so. You could do it easily by returning the absentee ballot request form that we sent to all eight million Ohio registered voters. Or if you lost that or don’t have it, you can go to vote Ohio dot gov. And on that website you can French he absentee ballot request form. Heck, if you don’t have a printer, you can even make your own just using a plain piece of notebook paper and we give you all the instructions right there at photo. Ohio dot gov We’ve also seen 1.5 million Ohioans who have already returned their absentee ballot. But here’s a reminder. If you requested an absentee ballot and it’s sitting there on your kitchen table, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and fill it out. Do just like what Lauren and I did. Fill out your absentee ballot, put the appropriate postage in on it and mail it in today. And once you do, you could go toe. Vote Ohio dot gov and track your ballot to make sure that it’s received by your county Board of Elections. Now we’ve seen over 750,000 Ohioans that have taken advantage of early voting. That’s 2.5 times the number that we saw in 2016 Ohioans Air Clearly enthusiastic. Now you may have seen some lines over the weekend, of course, are both collections work to keep those socially distanced, so it may look like a longer line than it actually is. But those lines moved quickly, and that’s a sign of enthusiasm. Ohioans have 216 hours of early voting, and Ohioans are taking advantage of that enthusiastically. And so if you like that in person voting experience, don’t wait. Go to vote Ohio dot gov to find the hours and locations for early voting in your county, the location for early voting in your county. And make sure to make your voice heard. We’ve also seen Ohioans that have cast their ballot in huge numbers. 2.2 million, as I already said, and we also know that 840,000 Alex they’re still out there. So again, if you’re sitting on that, make sure to get it returned right away. Something else I want to address. Governor There has been, uh, no share, no shortage of disinformation and misinformation out there. Now Ohioans won’t be full. Ohioans know that the trustworthy source for elections information is your county Board of Elections website or the Ohio secretary of state website vote Ohio dot gov. But there are folks out there that want to see Fred false information. If you believe that you’re seeing false information, intentional disinformation about elections reported, we don’t tolerate that in Ohio. We don’t tolerate voter intimidation. We don’t tolerate disinformation. The way to report that is on our email system. Its report at Ohio s o s dot gov that’s monitored 24 hours a day report at Ohio s o s dot gov And I’ve got a success story because of a thoughtful Ohio that reported to us a new incident of voter intimidation that was targeted, particularly at the minority community, a really ugly and pernicious act of voter disinformation. There’s a Cleveland grand jury today that actually just indicted. Two bad guys who are going to face justice for our office played a role in helping to make sure that these people face justice because they were trying to confuse and intimidate voters. We won’t tolerate it. Anybody that thinks that they’re going to get away with that kind of thing has another thing coming. We don’t tolerate that in Ohio. Ohioans. No, it’s easy to vote. It’s easy to vote in the Buckeye State, and now the bottom line is this. Make your voice heard. There’s no excuse for not voting. You’ve got the whole month of early voting, a whole month of absentee voting, and you’ve got in person election day voting and when this is all over, Governor Ohioans will know it was a fair and honest contest. Now, one last thing about how we report election night results, we always report an unofficial result on election night. Now what does that mean? That means we report every early vote, every absentee vote and every in person election they vote. That’s come in so far. But it’s never the final story because Ohio boards of elections have 10 days to receive ballots as long as they were cast long as they were mailed by Monday, November 2nd a ZA. Long as it’s a legal ballot, it deserves to be counted. And so when we have that unofficial result on election night, it’s gonna be a snapshot in time. The official result a few weeks later is the one that really counts. But here’s something that we’re doing is getting a lot of attention around the nation. We’re also on election night going to report the number of outstanding absentee ballots. That’s a number that will tell us how many ballots are still out there in the postal system that are waiting to come back, and that will give Ohioans a good sense of whether that’s a conclusive result. they’re seeing on election night or not again. The bottom line is this. If you got a ballot, mail it in. If you want to vote absentee, request that absentee ballot today which ever meant that you choose. Make sure you vote Ohio. Thanks so much. Governor. Secretary. Thank you very much. And thanks to all the poll workers who are gonna be there next Tuesday and thanks to everybody, the Board of Elections today that are working hard to see that people could vote today. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Mm. Well, sadly, the red tide of the virus continues to spread throughout Ohio into every every corner of this state. There is no There is no escaping it. 82 of our counties, 82 of our counties, air now classified as high incident spread, counties Onley six. That or not every Ohioan needs to have an understanding of exactly what is going on in their own community. They need to understand what the data is. What’s happened in the last two weeks with cases, hospitalizations, etcetera. Um, they need to understand the extent of the spread in their community. And that’s why we continue to do these press conferences. That’s why we post this information up online every day. So with that in mind, let’s look at the numbers for today. As we look at these numbers, I think every Ohioan needs to be alarmed by what we’re seeing. As you can see, over 2500 new cases. Um, again, 22 new deaths 198 new hospitalizations in 20 new I see you. Admissions. It was not that long ago. It was not that long ago when this number, as you recall, three weeks ago 3.5 weeks ago it was hovering around 1000 and we thought it was gonna drop and stay below with 1000. So this is dramatically, as you can see, dramatically going up. Let’s look at our 88 counties now 88 counties in order all the way down again. This is the highest spread to the lowest spread again this week. We have colored in blue all the counties that air high incident counties, these air counties that have in high incidence, and again you will see that just a handful six counties at the bottom do not have high incidence levels again evidence that this is just absolutely, uh, everywhere. Um hi. Instance means the county has had more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents over the last two weeks. This number is the distinction that the C D. C. Makes between the county with a moderately high level of spread in a high level of spread. We know that a high level of cases in the community just makes it more dangerous. Uh, increases the risk of catching this infection from someone else. Uh, let’s go to the top 20 counties slide again. These air, the top 20 all areas of the state, um, continue to see this increase. But if you look at our top counties again, you’ll see that you know, the 1st 10 counties are you know, some of the smaller counties of the state. You’ll see some of the counties with, you know, this is eight over eight times the high incidence rate. This’d is five times four times so you could just see that some of the very, very high incident counties air just literally, literally off off the charts. And that is certainly very concerning Eric. Let’s look at the hospitalization map a zwelling again. This tracks the entire period from back in April, two to the present and one of things that you will see. You’ll see this The color of the light blue is total hospitalization. People in the hospital I see you with people in I C u vent. That’s the yellow. And that’s people who are on ventilators so you can see how those numbers are moving again. This is a snapshot of how many people are in the in the hospital. So what you’re seeing, of course, is a much steeper curve thing we saw and we saw in June. Certainly a steeper curve. And we saw before, uh, we have seen peaks in the hospitalization before, Once in the spring, again the summer. The current increase in utilization is noticeably sharper, steeper than the increase we saw during the summer peak. Based on the trajectory of other early indicators, we’ve likely not yet reached the top. We have no indication that we’ve plateau out at all. Covert positive utilization is basically doubled. Uh, from I see. Excuse me. Covert positive. I see you. Utilization has doubled from the beginning of October on. That is very concerning as well. Again, We’re not to the point where any of our hospitals are overflowing, but the trend lines or not, Not good. As you can see, uh, this virus is spreading, and it is everywhere in Ohio, it is community spread that is driving this when you see numbers as high as we just looked at, that indicates that virtually every county has, except 6 82 counties have this high high spread, which means is out in the community. The community spread endangers our schools or nursing homes and our hospitals. Um, take a look at the slide that we have right here. Um is a cause and effect community spread caused by these things and other things lead to problems in the nursing homes or schools. And in our hospitals, it is cause and effect is the virus spreads in the community from gatherings where people aren’t wearing mask or aren’t social distancing. It is directly impacting our ability to keep our schools open, directly impacting our ability to protect our elderly, those who are ill, who are in our nursing homes and it directly impacts ultimately our hospitals. Andi, if it continues and we possibly can see our hospitals overrun, uh, things that we’ve seen on TV but have not yet experienced in Ohio and something that we certainly do not want to experience again. Um, these were some of the things that are causing our community spread. No mask. People now keeping a distance. Game day watch parties. Now, uh, large wedding receptions, crowded bars, house parties, extended family gather gathering gatherings with extended family. Um, is ultimately, if you worry about your grandmother in the nursing home, this community spread is how we can control it keeping that down when it goes up. The odds of it getting into a nursing home goes up when it goes up. This is high levels. As we’re seeing in many counties today. It threatens our K through 12 schools. When it goes up, it threatens ultimately our hospitals. So what do we do about this? Uh, in the words of two great Ohio State coaches? Um, and let me quote from them way do need to stick to our game plan because we know it works. Ohio. When we stick together, we always win. They said it very, very well. Um, this is a game that we must win. And to do that, we have to get back to basics. We have to get back to the fundamentals we’re mask when you’re out in public. When you go to a store. When you were friends, keep your distance. Wash your hands often work on the ventilation, so you’re bringing in more air from the outside, in your in your home or in the public building that you’re in charge of. If you’re one of the 82 counties you live in, one the 82 counties that is a now a high incident county. Um, let’s be more specific. Please reconsider. Reconsider hosting or attending gatherings of any size. This includes with friends, an extended family. People who don’t live in your household to think about canceling events certainly don’t go toe Halloween parties. Three. We’re mask inside and outside when you cannot social distance above the nose over the mouth, secure under the chin. Stay home. If you’re not well, cooperate with your local public health officials. If you’re diagnosed with Koven 19 or exposed to somebody who has Cove in 19 work remotely from home, if you can and we need help from our businesses allow employees to work from home when possible. People did that. If you could still do that. If that works, it’s better to send your employees communications, urging them to take personal precautions to prevent the spread of covert 19 not just during their time at work, but when their home, when they’re out and about three for retail establishments, require customers to wear masks unless there is some specific exemption. Our problem is community spread because 82 of our counties or high incidence counties um, I am today asking leaders in every single county to redouble your efforts. We’ve seen a lot of great leadership come out of mayors, county commissioners, business community, those in labor. We’ve seen people in our churches, our faith based community. So we’ve seen a lot of leadership around the state on this issue, and so thank you very, very much. Now, though, is the time to reevaluate in each single community, every county, exactly what you were doing. And so I’m asking you to pull together at group of leaders in the community, drawn from all different all different parts of the community. Um, each community really needs to reassess right now what it is doing and what it can do in the future. We’re at a critical stage. Review certainly should include county commissioners, mayors, health commissioners, school and hospital leaders, college leaders, community, other community leaders, including those from the faith based community, from business and from the nonprofit sector. When the great things about our state is the great communities and how people pull together, whether it’s a large county or a small county, that people come together to solve problems, we are all in this together. What each person does or does not do will determine how well we do over the next few months before the vaccine arrives. I’m going to start meetings today, A soon as this press conference is over on. We’re going to start first with the three counties that are on the watch list. We’ll do two of those counties today, one tomorrow. Then I will move to the highest of the high incidence counties, and again, we’ll start with these counties and start working our way down Onda again. We’ll do is Zoom call will bring people together on. We’ll just kind of talk and we’ll exchange ideas. Um, I’ll be there. My team will be there to listen to your concerns. Listen to where you need us, toe help you We’ll tell you where we can help you. But these kind of meetings, I think are very, very important. Now it’s gonna take me a while, Get down through the list. But we’re onto him fast as we can. But obviously in the meantime, we would ask you to pull together, set up a meeting yourselves. Get on the phone, get on, Zoom, get on. Whatever. However, you can do it, uh, and pull people together in the community because this community is working together there is going to make the difference. This is how we’re gonna beat this enemy. We have a common enemy. We have a common enemy on that is this virus and it’s a virus that will not. The trend lines will not change unless we change them. If we continue to do the same things we’ve been doing, we’re gonna end up getting the same results. So although many people are wearing masks, many people are being very, very careful. We need just to get that our game up on. We need to get more and more people who are doing that and this ground game. This grassroots effort, I think, is really the key to getting this done. So I look forward myself to being on these on these calls I look forward to talking with with each and every one of you. But I’d ask you again to get started on that right away. Um, we have the ability working with local leaders to offer some state support. And a lot of this We’ve already talked about an extended things such as increased rapid in rapid testing, additional personal protection equipment help with contact tracing so people can quarantine and stop the spread in its tracks, helping guidance with air ventilation in buildings and other things. Um, look, we’re Ohioans. We always come together, uh, in a time of flood along the Ohio River or one of our other rivers in the state where there’s been bad fires. Uh, when there has been tornadoes, we rally together, our communities just come together like that. So we’ve got to do that in regard to this virus. We’ve got to come together and and go after, uh, this invader because we truly have, in fact, been, uh, invaded. Um, if you’re a county America, let’s look at that slide again. If you’re a county with a high incidence um, Europe here set a goal. Let’s say you’re Let’s say you’re Mercer at 4. 78 or Europe Homes with 3 98. You know, set the Golden Thio. Knock it down 100 set a goal to knock it down. 200. Whatever. That goal is work in that community to get that done. Because when you take the cases down, you’re gonna take the hospitalizations down and you’re gonna ultimately take the desk down. It’s really a simple as simple as that. Our goal in the state should be to get every county, every county should have an ultimate goal of getting under 100. That’s the high instance. We certainly we certainly have the ability to do that unless each one of us recommit. Let’s look at our county and say, Here’s where we could block this virus from spreading more. We could take this action. We could do that. The ability to do that lies uniquely with you as the leaders in each one of our of our counties. Um let me now turn, uh, to the lieutenant Governor John. Thank you, Governor. Yeah, I just want to reiterate I think that these calls that we’re gonna be doing or are essential because we need to have a local strategy. A localized strategy to get at this is we see the virus spreading dramatically in every county in this state. Aziz, you articulated Well, this is this This virus is spreading at the community level and the things that we do in our own personal time we need. We need people. Basically, Thio, take ownership of the problem of the problem at the local level, take action on the solutions at the local level, and and it’s going to take a community effort to get that done. And I believe that it’s gonna happen, I believe is you said people are going to rally to the cause. They’re going to set a goal, they’re gonna be determined, and we’re gonna begin toe to move this trend in the other direction soon. But it’s it’s not gonna change without that effort. I would as I like to do. I always like to try to give some component of our economic recovery. Azzawi fight the virus and the economic consequences of the virus. I wanna set a reminder for people. Look, I know that the technology and the virus or changing the economy quickly and people need thio get retrained. This is a perfect time to do it on through tech Red. We have the opportunity for employers of the state to up skill their employees, uh, toe up skill. Somebody, perhaps that they wanna hire into one of these new positions is technologies changing the role of those of those jobs? We will pay up to $2000 of a persons industry credentials. Some of these industry credentials credentials come with college credits associated with them. Uh, this is a great opportunity for you toe to engage. So if you’re an employer and you want to up skill one of your employees go to tech cred dot Ohio dot gov The deadline for the latest round of applications is on Friday. We need to get this going. We talk about unemployment statistics at the macro level, but we know that the impact, the economic and social impact is that the individual level about everybody being empowered, uh, to better prepare for their futures and to help your company and help themselves in the economy. And this is one way to do it. Uh, Tech Read that Ohio dot gov Enroll before Friday, 3 p.m. Deadline. Thanks, Governor. We’re ready for questions. Thanks, Lieutenant. Governor. Governor, your first question today is from Adrian Robbins. A wcmh in Columbus. Governor, Thank you for taking questions today. Earlier today, President Trump tweeted fake news media is going full on Covad Code Cove it. We’re rounding the turn now. You’ve painted a pretty grim picture today who show high ones be listening to when the president same a rounding a turn and you’re asking people to double down. Well, I can only speak. What I see in Ohio on what we see in Ohio is we’re not We’re not had the right direction. We had the wrong direction. Doesn’t mean we can’t turn around. Um, look, I give the president a lot of credit for putting the money in very, very early to develop the vaccine. We’re gonna have a vaccine. Andi, the cavalry is coming to the rescue or whatever your analogy you want. You want tohave. So there’s hope out there. We’re gonna get through this, we’re gonna get those vaccines. It’s gonna take a while to get it all out and get enough people vaccinated. But you know, we could do that. But we’ve got to get through the next few months and to get through the next two months and to keep businesses open, keep kids in school, keep things going. We’ve got to do the things that I talked about today. That’s that’s the way we know the recipe is our two coaches said We know what works. We’ve got the game plan. Let’s just execute on it. Next question is from Krista Frost at WBNS in Columbus. Yeah, so at the beginning of the pandemic, many things were shut down so we could flatten the curve. And we’re seeing a spike now, obviously. So what’s the difference from then to right now? Should people expect to see another shutdown? Yeah, here’s the Here’s the difference. We already did that once, and we saved a lot of lives and Ohio high One should be very proud of where they are or what they’ve done in the past. Twice they have been able to knock this virus down. Um, but we know that a complete shutdown will have other consequences that are not good. And so, you know, we have kids who lost March. April lost a few months. Uh, they had remote, but they were certainly not in class. You know, we had businesses that were shut down. We had other other bad things come mental health problems, etcetera. So we don’t want to shut down again. We’ve done it once. We just can’t do it twice. Um, or we certainly don’t want to do it twice. We want to avoid doing it twice. And so the game plan I’ve outlined today very short, very simple, very easy will get us out of this, and we will not have to shut down. But if we don’t do this and if we don’t fight this battle county by County, city by city, village by village. If we do not fight in that way, we will, one way or the other be shut down on. We will be shut down because the spread will be so bad. So look, we have Thanksgiving looming. We have Christmas coming up. Uh, it is getting darker in the sense that we’re losing light and you know. Look, people are inside more just because of the cold and because of the, uh when it gets dark. So people are inside a lot mawr, and we know it’s that it could be a very dangerous time for the spread of this virus. So we gotta make a correction really quick. Um, that’s what we’ve gotta dio, but we know how to do it. We’ve done it twice before. I’m asking Ohioans to do it again, Governor, if I could if I could add to that answer the place that the governor highlighted earlier today the spread is not coming from businesses. It’s coming from what people are doing on their own personal time. And so shutdown doesn’t affect that. Um, we’re trying to target the solutions to get people toe own it at the personal level because that’s where the solutions lie is what we do on our own personal time. Businesses have shown that they can create a safe environment, and they’re doing that across the state, and we need to we need to focus the solutions on where the problem is. Some of my best friends in the Legislature talk about personal responsibility. I’m a big believer in personal responsibility to I know they are. This is about personal responsibility and what each and every one of us can do. Next question is from Scott Allison Xena, Daily Gazette. It’s got Governor. How are you? I’m good. Just a question. We’ve got winter sports coming up in Ohio. Teams were starting to try out there picking their teams. And I know, um, there’s limits you Noah’s faras There was women’s for volleyball. How many people could be in a gym or whatever? Has there been any thought given yet to what’s gonna happen in the in the winter when you have wrestling, basketball inside swimming? You know, bowling all inside the same places where they’re gonna be more stricter limits because of the community spread because people were inside more Now I had a superintendent today, this morning email me and say, Recommend that we, you know, postponed sports, winter sports, uh, into into January, see where we are. I don’t know the answer, Scott, but I know what I can tell you and everyone else is despite we’re seeing this. What we’re seeing threatens everything that we want to do. We gotta get control over. Next question is from Alex Ebert at Bloomberg. Thanks for taking our questions, Governor. Early this spring, Dr Amy Acton said that projection showed there would be about 10,000 new cases per day. Then later, after, um, steps were taken, we saw that that projection decreased to about 1600 cases per day. We’ve now blown past that sort of projection on a daily case basis. What are the current projections and your health experts saying we could see as faras a peak of new cases per day goes in Ohio if things continue the way they’re headed. Thanks for your time. Yeah, we reviewed a projection yesterday. Didn’t come from Ohio. Eso I’m going back to our Ohio folks and take a look at it. But it was It was This projection was stunningly high. Uh, it was so high that I said, you know, we gotta go. Look, just let’s try our Ohio folks. See what they say. So I don’t have an answer today. I’m going back to some of the folks that do modeling, um at at our universities here in Ohio and kind of see what they look, what they come up with. you know, again, I think the caution always on this is what assumptions are you Are you using? You know what? In one of the one of the key ingredients, I’ll tell everybody if you talk to modelers, Um, is what percentage of people are wearing masks. That’s that’s always one of the key inputs, uh, in into that. So we know from them. And from what we’ve seen in Ohio, that wearing mask is fundamentally important. It is back. And that is, as I said, the beginning back to basics. So they’re things that we know will will change the outcome. Next question is from Danda Rosa W O I O in Cleveland. Good afternoon, Governor. How are you? I’m good. Thank you. So I know you’re not a fan of the phrase herd immunity. You prefer community immunity. So my questions sort of along that line. When you look at 202 when you look at 202 positive 202,000 positive cases in the state of Ohio, that represents about 1.6% of the state that’s actually tested positive. Granted, we know that to be much higher, not everybody got tested early on, uh, that had symptoms and probably had it. So experts are saying maybe around 5% at least here in Chi Yoga County. Are we seeing higher numbers now? Because we did such a good job early on on, we did close down early and we did wear masks in July. Is this just sort of the vaccine not going away? And we’re not ever gonna be able to avoid getting above 1.5% or 5% people getting infected. Well, clearly, the more people you have infected, um, you know, assuming that this immunity lasts and we’ve seen some cases where someone got it again. So I’m not I don’t pretend to be the medical expert brought. Obviously, if you’ve had more people get it, then if they do have immunity, you assume there’s fewer people who can get it in the future. But, you know, that would be a horrible, horrible strategy. It would be a strategy that basically said, Let’s everybody get everybody exposed, and there’s no there’s no reputable scientists that I’m aware in the world who thinks we could reach herd immunity in any close proximity of time I’ve heard numbers from 60 to 70. 75%. You need to get the herd immunity again. I’m not the scientist, but we’re not even beginning down that pathway. Um, so, you know, we’re seeing the spread because it’s spreading. And because we’re not doing the interventions that we need on we know the things today. You know, we know a lot more than we knew in March in February. We know these masks are phenomenally effective. Not perfect. What? They’re phenomenally effective. S o. You know the idea that we get herd immunity, community immunity, whatever you wanna call it, It’s just it’s been a discredited theory in regard to the coronavirus because no one thinks we can get it in a reasonable period of time. The other thing I would say is that by saving lives early, um, you know, and you we not only or say saving lives, but if someone, I mean I said early on one of these press conferences, if you had a choice of getting in February or getting it in, uh, in November, you’d be better off getting in november. We don’t want anybody to get it, But doctors there no more and they know how to treat it more. It’s still not curable, still losing people every single day. But they certainly they certainly gnome or so the idea that we can herd immunity our way out of this is been described by everybody. The only way you get the herd immunity or community immunity is we’re gonna get it is to vaccine. Next question will come. Next question is from Andy Chow it Ohio Public Radio and television. Andy the governor. Um, back in May, there were leaders in the Legislature that wanted you to start addressing the pandemic county by county rather than a statewide perspective. Now it sounds like the game plan is going to more of a county by county level. What’s the explanation for the game plan there? And then Do you also expect, uh, possibly counties to be shutting down businesses on a county level? Well, let me talk about that for a moment. You know, we made the decision early on to treat the state as one unit. A part of that was legal. We believe that, for example, in regard to bars, you have to treat it. You have to treat equally We know that legally, if there’s any discrepancy between one county another you know the burdens upon you to show why you’re making a distinction. But that had to do was shut down. Um, what we’re talking about now is really taking community work up to a higher level. Uh, we’ve got a lot of great mayors, a lot of great commissioners, a lot of great health commissioners, a lot of great leaders in the faith based community. We’re doing a bang up job. All we’re saying really today is let’s re concentrate our efforts because whatever your county waas before, it’s higher today and for those counties in the spring where it waas clearly in the in the urban areas. If you live in a rural area, you were not having much impact. Now, no matter where you are, you’ve got to go deal with it. So what? We’re simply saying, particularly to a smaller counties who had avoided this for a long time, we’re simply saying, Hey, we gotta we need you. We need you to come in. We need you to rally on, but to do that. But this is not the state backing off. Nor is it. Nor is it a my saying I shirk any responsibility. I’m just I’m just saying we need more players on the field. We need more troops on the ground we gotta all be in and for the counties that could get by in the spring and not begin. I understand that they weren’t seeing it today. They’re seeing it today. There nursing homes or threatens to their hospitals were threatened and their schools or threatened. That’s the difference. Next question is from Jeff Reddick at W S Y X in Columbus. Good afternoon, Governor thing. The Big 10 continues to have its games, Obviously, here in Columbus, local health experts are worried about the House parties, the unofficial tailgating going on in neighborhoods, they’ve asked. The big tend to reconsider having night games or cable games because not everyone has access. They have to crowd together to be able to watch the game, but they feel they’re being ignored by the Big 10. Would you reach out on their behalf? Have you been approached about doing so? Does this worry you? Well, the answer, the second. The one question, um, I not thought about that as far as when the games were scheduled or where the games were available, what they were available on, so we certainly could take a look at that. My concern about Big 10 football has always been not what goes on the field. Um, you know, they’re following very strict protocols and doesn’t mean you can’t have spread. They certainly could. But I I do believe that the athletes who are under that protocol, who have a great, great, great desire to play, uh, probably are certainly safe and maybe safer than it’s just a knave Ridge student, Um, but what I’ve always worried about and continue to worry about, I was talking to Americans today and talking some other mayors. It’s simply what people dio watching the game. You know, uh, they got and they bring a bunch of people together. And that’s why you know, again, this is what I said earlier on, you know, really reconsider those, you know. No, it’s more fun watching Ohio State when you got you know, a bunch of people and you’re drinking beer or you’re eating something and pizza or drinking pop, whatever. But, um, let’s enjoy the season. Let’s enjoy the game. But let’s don’t get the virus because of it. Next question is from Danielle. Bridget Hannah News Service. Well, Governor, um, so I know when people ask you about the president you like to see, you wanna focus on Ohio? Well, the President came to Circleville in Central Ohio. You greeted him at the airport, you know, tacitly endorsing this huge event that he was holding in Ohio during, you know, a time that’s really bad. What message does that send? How do you justify that? I justify it this way. I’m the governor of the state of Ohio. The President. United States, comes here. Um, I want to greet him. Um, it’s important for the governor of Ohio to have a relationship. Um, with the president. United States. You know, I think that is that is important. I was not at the rally. Um, look, I’ve made it very, very clear that whether you’re in a rally, whether you’re a protest, whether you’re at a football watching party, gathering together without mask with virus that has spread as deeply as it has into every crevice in the state of Ohio is a mist ake on dso you know again would urge people we’re mask, Whatever whatever you’re doing and those particularly if you’re close to someone else and you can’t you can’t do the social distancing, so don’t please understand exactly what it waas. It was the governor of Ohio reading the president of the United States. Uh, and I’ve also endorsed him, and I continued to endorse him. Next question is from Laura Bischoff at the Dayton Daily News. Laura. Hey, Governor. So, 82 counties there this high incidence of red or orange? None. Or at purple. Is your administration not categorizing counties as purple until after the election? No, no, no, no. Oh, no. This is all in data or data. People tell me what it is on on Wednesday or use. It’s late late Wednesday, sometimes early Thursday. Uh, they confirm it again Right before the press on press event at two o’clock on Thursday. And I report whatever they tell me to report No, no, this is on data, basically on data. We’ve got three counties that could go, um, purple. Um, but remember, under the criteria, they have to continue, you know, they can’t just still be They’ve got to see the increase. Continue to go for that last week. So they’ve got to do it two weeks in a row. They’ve gotta have that growth, That significant growth for two straight weeks. I mean, we could have shown that’s the way we set it up. It takes two weeks in a row to do that. So this would be the second week for those three counties, and I don’t know where they’re gonna hit that or not. They hit it, we’ll call it. Next. Question is from Max will be at the Columbus Dispatch. Afternoon. Governor, I know you’ve said that you would like to avoid another economic shutdown like we had earlier this year. So with that being said, could we see more along the lines of, ah, capacity limits and things like that at bars, restaurants and stores, Maybe more so than just the 6 ft distancing that we have in place now. Yeah, I’m really I mean, they’ve they’ve got toe those. Those outliers have got to do what they should be doing. And if they don’t, there needs to be consequences. And there will be, in fact, the consequences. But answer your question. I’m not I’m not taking anything off the table. Please don’t misunderstand. You know, as governor of the state, I’m gonna do what I have to do. But I know Aziz, John Huston said. And he’s spot on that. We’re we’re seeing the spread. The big spread, at least, uh, generally is in people’s own personal lives. That’s why we asked business to jump in and tell you Talk to your employees about being safe when they go home. Um, you know, that’s that’s why, uh, we’re talking to any community leaders to talk to people about that because that is an area that, you know, we don’t have any any really control over what people do in their own home. Uh, you know what they do? And they’re in their personal time. Those things, Um, that’s where personal responsibility has got to come in. And that’s what we’ll really make the difference. But, no, I’m not taking anything off the table. We’ll do what we have to do. Next question is from Amanda Van Allen at W E. W s in Cleveland. Hey, Governor, Um, I know you talked about this a little bit a couple questions ago, but I wanted to clarify something. I know that the county’s usually change over color every Thursday. I mean, you talked about three counties, potentially going purple. I’m most concerned about Cuyahoga County over here in Cleveland. Is that one of the three counties? Yeah. I mean, there, you know, and this is not a news today. I mean, this is there were three counties were on the watch list last Thursday. What that simply means is they hit the criteria last Thursday, but under our way, we set this up months ago. They’ve got to hit that twice in a row. And so we’re going to see, you know, Thursday what they hit, whether or not they hit, they become purple or they don’t become purpose again. I would just caution everyone. You know, you gotta look at two things. Look, look how much spread you’ve had. How many new cases you’ve had in the last two weeks? 400,000. That’s very, very important. The other thing is, look at the color. And when you get to purple, what that’s indicating is you’ve got potential problems in your hospitals. That’s why purple is so so important. Next question is from Jesse Balmer at the Cincinnati Enquirer Jesse. Hello, Governor. Come. My question is about the size of events. Like the rally in Circleville this weekend, I guess. Will you ask? Presidential candidates toe limit the size of their events. Similar to the ask that you’re making two people attending football parties this weekend. Look, um we’re asking people consistently toe wear a mask. You could have a football party if you wore masks. I mean, you have to be careful. You have to, you know, you’ve got to make that judgment call. But wearing the mask is what we’re asking people to dio uh, you know, I wouldn’t suggest they do a big party for a football game If they could be outside and we’re in mask and watching a screen that may make some sense. Every situation is different. And so I did ask last week in anticipation of the rally in Circleville. Everyone to wear a mask. Um, and I will, you know, continue. Thio do that. There was an event. There was an event, uh, event trump event in Youngstown. I picked up the phone the morning that was going to occur and called into the radio station and talked on the Dan river show. The reason I called in is I want to say please, We’re you know, we’re a mask if you’re going to this event. So I think you know, I think I’m consistent in that. Next question is from Josh Rottenberg at Spectrum News. Hi, Governor. How are you, Josh? You just said about 20 minutes ago If we don’t fight this county by county village by village, we will, one way or another, be shut down because spread will be so bad. So, at what point will we be shut down? Is it when counties reach purple? What? What is that exactly? Josh, I’ve said this before. Let me let me kind of try to articulate it may be better. Um, what will happen is what we’re already starting to see happen in some communities where the schools have to go remote. But they don’t want to go remote or where they planned on coming out of remote. And they stay remote because they’re seeing spread. We’re seeing schools that are have been totally open five days a week that have had to pull back for a couple of weeks. Why? Because they had an outbreak in their school. Um, you’ll see it in nursing homes. Um, the spread in nursing home comes from people generally who are going in out the door, and most of those people work there or they bring supplies there. So when you’ve got broad spread in the community, you’re gonna see broad spread in the in. Eventually, you’re gonna see spread in the nursing home, no matter how how much they try. Same with hospitals. I mean, you, we’ll start to see things happen in hospitals where they’ll say we’re not going to do elective surgeries were gonna pull back from this or pull back from that. So look, we’re watching it. We look at the data every single day, but to this point, we still have it within our control. It’s still within the control. We can have it within our control on that is, if the people of county after county get mad and say, we’re not gonna put up with this virus anymore, and we’re gonna go beat it. Yep, that’s what we need to have happen. And we got to do it and we can do it. Governor. Next question is the last question for today, and it belongs to John London at WLWT in Cincinnati. Hey, John. Governor, you said a moment ago the heaviest lift is with a personal lives and that you’re gonna meet with a watch list counties and start that right after this briefing. Hamilton County being one. Of course. I’m interested to know who you will meet with. And what do you want in place, Governor? Besides of better messaging and encouraging mass where? Yeah, I think that, you know, particularly with smaller counties. I think there needs to be an acceptance that we got to go win that there’s a battle worth fighting. Onda. We need all the county commissioners, frankly, or or county executives. In case of Cuyahoga County, for example, Summer County. You know, we need all the all the opinion leaders. Um, yeah, we need everybody in the game, so I’m looking generally for about 10 people on these calls on Gluck. It’s gonna be in exchange. I’m not going to sit there and tell them what to do is gonna be in exchange. We’ll make sure they understand what resource is we have that we can bring in. I’ve always found talking with people. Communication is good We’ve had a lot of communication during this, but we’re gonna make this more formal, and so we just will go. Go right down, down, down the line. I mean, I talked to, you know, mirror Cranley twice a week, at least. And I talk to mayors and commissioners all over the state. But we’re gonna do this more formally and just methodically do it. Let me close by saying, on this date in 18 58 or 26 President Theodore Roosevelt was born. And let me say something that from his 1905 inaugural address, which I think is pertinent to what’s going on today. And I quote from Theodore Roosevelt. Much has been given us and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves. And we can shirk neither. It’s time for us to go to battle and to go defeat the virus. We’ll see you all in a couple days. Thank you.