We are coming up on the end of summer with the fall months just a breath and blink away. In the governor's COVID-19 press conference today, the absence of other voices was painfully obvious. While the Lt. Gov. puts out the proverbial fires of mass church gatherings without face coverings that have led to one of the largest death spikes so far in this pandemic, his podium remained stalwartly facing the camera. Dr. Amy Acton's podium was edited out clumsily as the governor turned toward the slideshow projector that hangs just behind it. Dr. Acton has not returned since stepping down following the death threats to not only her, but her partner, and children, when protestesters barricaded them in their home in downtown Columbus.
Common Sense is running in short supply these days. As much as I want to be a positive force for the #InThisTogetherOhio movement, each day I become more confused what it is I am standing for and who is standing with me.
As I heard it today, a mandatory mask protocol remains in effect for the entire state with just a few provisions for those who are truly unable to safely wear a mask. Anyone watching the governor's briefings will have noticed a change in how he chooses to address his fellow Ohioans. At first a decisive, sharp mind kept us out of germ-filled voting booths (even though he had to stay up all night to make sure the order remained in effect). As he gained popularity among his constituents, as well as catching the eye of the BBC News Network for his impeccable leadership, he became known for his personable, yet firm stances on a "citizens-first" policy. In an unprecedented poll, he maintained a minimum of 83% popularity rate with the citizens in his state for more than a month. He first put a mask mandate order into effect during this period while Dr. Acton and Lt. Gov. Husted began getting backlash. He was immediately slammed with uproar as his popularity took a steep plunge. Meanwhile, most governors still had not put into effect the "stay-at home" orders that Gov. DeWine had put into place in mid-March. The GOP and White House correspondence did not line up with Gov. DeWine's messaging in most respects.
It was this moment that has defined, in my mind and the minds of most Cinnati Public teachers, how and why this semester is going to be full of impossible choices for all involved.
He recanted the mask mandate the first time he issued it, only reissuing last week, saying "the citizens let me know I had stepped too far out of my lane." He is the governor. This is a health crisis. I think he owns the highway until a new paint job clearly illustrates the lines for all of us.
After this move, it was not long until rhetoric from the president began to make its way into Gov. DeWine's messaging. Just today, he said that he cannot "in good conscience condemn [hydroxyquinoline] as a front-line treatment option." The the big bomb.
"I am not a doctor."
Who else has been touting that phrase while offering medical advice?
The in-between is the part that makes me most sad. Gov. DeWine has repeatedly called on Ohioans to "do what they do best," namely take care of each other and be kind to their fellow citizens. This line had grown tired and ragged around the edges as he bandages non-promises for a better tomorrow with weaker and weaker language, arranging and rearranging the same words with nothing else apparent in his arsenal.
In reflecting, the decisive governor certainly seems to have felt his staff's weariness and the ever-present pressure to tow the line with the White House, refusing to comment on President Trump's remarks, or if forced, finding a middle ground that keeps him from the clutches of Republican ostracism. His quick responses up-front undoubtedly saved lives and, as the Enquirer wrote, "smashed the curve."
By late April/early May it was clear that this was not going to be the way his political legacy would end. He continues to wear a tie from an Ohio college or university, especially focusing on those "land-grant" institutions. While this folksy image has felt sincere and kind at times, his unending well of optimism is frankly not shared by the vast majority of the population in Ohio as relaxed policies have led to increased spikes in community spread, congregate spread, hospitalizations, and perhaps most frighteningly, ICU bed occupation, which is a severely lagging statistic. This means that a person with COVID-19 may be asymptomatic for a time, then feel ill, get care in a hospital or outpatient setting, and as a final step end up in the ICU on a ventilator. If this statistic continues to jump, this can be extrapolated more easily than any other metric of the rising spread of coronavirus in our state.
Today he walked to the podium and my husband and I prayed together that there would be an answer, whether we agree or disagree, as to how and whether businesses will remain open. How school will look this fall, with my husband beginning in just a week, and both of us being highly compromised individuals for different reasons.
The governor has lost the charismatic drive that initially instilled confidence in his competency. This decline of confidence is echoed in his choice to dance, duck, and dodge questions from the public that he once met head-on. More than this, the utter incompatibility of his suggestions is fueling panic and a constant buzz of anxiety in most people.
He has made it clear that (using the aforementioned color chart for public health emergency) counties in the "orange zone" may have group meetings of no more than 10 people at a time. Counties in the "red zone" are not allowed to have group meetings outside of the immediate family members. Without stopping for breath he insists that schools will be physically re-opened for the fall semester unless a district chooses to go virtual or blended on their own.
When he signed an order to close school in March, there were not even a hundred cases of COVID-19 in Ohio. As of today, we currently have had 89,626 cases in Ohio.
This is where educators, support staff, students, and parents feel justifiably angry that measures taken in states such as New York were not regularly enforced here and have led to a fever pitch just before everyone is supposed to enter school buildings.
We live in a red zone county (and my husband teaches in a red zone county). How do you not meet or "group" with others outside your home and return to school?
You can't. These are basic, impossible contradictions.
He discusses school sports, speculating that contact sports may be requiring new guidance, but says nothing of the teachers with 30 years of experience, tenure, and a more fragile immune system or a spouse with a fragile immune system.
He discusses his belief that Ohioans will "do the right thing" in restaurants, while one incident alone over the past weekend in one isolated bar has led to over 150 cases based on one "patient zero" in that establishment.
Rather than focus on the numbers and allow scientific minds to help guide his hand, Gov. DeWine has taken to shaming counties that have reached an "orange" or "red" status, reading off specific incidents that occurred creating the most spread in their particular area. While this can come off as a stern "Ward Cleaver" type talk, it also feels unhelpful as we hear for the fifth press conference in a row that trips outside of Ohio are a leading cause of new cases and that graduation parties, baptisms, weddings, funerals, religious ceremonies, and most of all, food and beverage establishments add to a complex outbreak constellation.
While I might not know the exact bar or bars in Athens Co. or Allen Co. that put these counties on a "watchlist headed for purple" next week (the highest level of public health disaster), there are enough details that people from these areas are likely able to pinpoint some of the points of origin which leads to more blame, more shame, and no concerted effort on change.
As it stands, masks are mandated for all of Ohio, school systems have the power to choose how comfortable they are endangering faculty and students, fairs that have caused more than 1,000 new cases are still up and running, but with disposable masks at the entrances. Hospitals are beginning to report "overflow and overrun' and there remains no travel ban county-to-county or state-to-state. About 6% of our population is COVID-19 positive definitively--comparing this number to the staggering 29% in Florida, I am shaken that in some respects the federal and state governments are not doing more to trace across county lines.
Again, Gov. DeWine has said that there is a mandatory 14-day quarantine period for ANYONE and EVERYONE who resides here, but travels outside of the state of Ohio when they return. There is no one currently enforcing this strong language, which really makes it into yet another meek suggestion with no consequences for those who are not as optimistic as our governor.
Government without the governing is just...well. You know.
Gov. DeWine did get one ball rolling as he decided to tackle the issue of bars and restaurants by calling an "emergency meeting" for the group in Ohio in charge of liquor licensure and dispensing with the goal of no alcohol being served after 10 PM state-wide, although he is now allowing for one person to either pick-up, or carry-out, three alcoholic beverages in lieu of former open-container policies.
It is hard to look back at my own optimism at the initial decisive governor who protected the people who voted him into office, to a man who made no changes but read the sick/dead toll twice weekly, to a shaming public figure calling out specific nonspecific encounters (preventable by his own orders should he have had the courage to do the obvious and right thing early enough), to now watching a pale husk of a man stare at his pages of notes with all the sadness and confusion of a rural Ohioan watching a wildfire move silently, swiftly, and with no discernment over his carefully cultivated fields.
We're in the trenches, you guys. But we aren't alone. No, not even now. I see you through the smoke and sparks and the crackling, peeling wood as the crops and trees are ablaze. The buckeye tree's roots grow deep and as long as we keep showing up for one another to to help hold up the heavy hose, to pass along the next bucket of water, we will extinguish it, together. Let's choose what we want #InThisTogethOhio to mean.
Dig deep, friends, and remember that we:
"...have but one life to lose for this country."-Nathan Hale
Maybe Gov. DeWine is right to put his hope in the good of the people. I hope that I am right to put my hope in him in the office of the governor.
Prepare, don't panic,
-Allison
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