939,350 cases in Ohio; 384,903 in Kentucky; 648,875 in Indiana

Good afternoon, everyone. We'll start today by going to Pickaway County Circleville, where we're seeing our school employees being vaccinated at the Pickaway County Fairgrounds with essays. Jennifer Clymer, director of nursing for Pickaway County Public Health. This is why more. How are you doing today? How are you? So tell me. Tell me about your day today. Where did you start off? We were at Taste Valley and we did about 310 vaccinations there. And today for Circleville. 226. You guys. You guys were pretty busy today, huh? We are. No, that's that's great with us. Today also is Daniel Stolz, English teacher. Mr. Stolz. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it very much. How do you How do you feel about getting the vaccine today? I'm so excited to get the vaccine. I can't wait to have this added protection. Well, that's that's great. So you teach you teach high school or great school or Yeah, teach ninth grade English. That circle Bill. That's pretty important. Thanks for doing it. All right, We're gonna watch you get a shot. Oh, okay. Mhm. Stoltz, how you doing? Doing okay. I'm good. That was easy. Thank you very much. Good luck. Good luck the rest of the day. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yeah. You know, we've spoken about our efforts for equitable vaccine distribution making sure we're getting the vaccine, because this week we're in tow 65 we're going to stay for 65 for a few weeks. Uh, this week, thanks to the efforts the Ohio Department of Aging as well as the Ohio National Guard, we've begun to deliver vaccines directly into affordable senior housing locations in Ohio. Joining us today to talk about these efforts is Ohio Department of Aging Director Russell McIlroy, director. Thanks for joining us. Absolutely good afternoon, Governor Askew stated your on site today at one of our affordable senior housing locations. This is part of our regional rapid response assistance program or what we refer to as rap. There are about 97,000 older Hollings living in these sites, and we've identified more than 1300 sites within the high density metropolitan and suburban areas as well as hard to reach rural areas. So when we talk about equity and access, we need to make sure their actions are very strategic with the limited amount of vaccines in this country right now and being able to offer vaccines. So Highlands, who are aged 65 older, who are living and affordable housing who may have been on their own since, perhaps last spring. It's really targeted approach to advance better health for all, so you'll see through our partnership. The National Guard has trained medical personnel there, administering the vaccination, coordinating all the volunteers, all the logistics at all the things that we need to do to be sure that this is a really good day and good experience. Also on site, we have our local area agency on aging and while we're doing the critical work of getting the vaccines, the most vulnerable were also on a mission to connect with older all highlands and do isolation screenings. We do know that during the pandemic, many of the older adults have been staying home. They've done some of things we've asked them to do, and they've not spent a lot of times with maybe some of the people they're used to. And so we also know. For those who are isolated and feeling lonely, they have higher risk for heart disease or stroke, dementia, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and perhaps even premature death. So when we go out, we're looking to do these important screens not only for isolation but other red flags. And we're looking for anything that indicates that an individual who comes through our line, we need to connect with additional resource is. So we're really excited about this critical opportunity for the aging network to connect with many of these older adults while at the same time working with the Guard to put in place. He's really important vaccinations. Begin the vaccines out at the same time. You having the opportunity to interface with with the residents, see if they have any other things that they need any other other challenges. I think we were in this was going on in Toledo. We got I think we have a picture. Eric Toledo and, uh, was that yesterday? Correct. Yesterday we had about 300 individuals through. Today we're in Cleveland tomorrow will be in Cleveland, will also be in Columbus and Cincinnati were already looking forward to next week. Next week we plan to be in Akron, Youngstown and date. Okay, well, that's good. Everything going OK so far. Do we think Absolutely. Everything I'm hearing is that we have really great interest. Great uptake. And we're just gonna keep rolling. Okay, That's good. We appreciate. Okay, We're gonna roll right now to Cleveland. Going to see a few of those Ohio seniors be vaccinated at AM beside Towers in Cleveland. Joining us is Christie Groves. Christie Groves is the director of Residents Services. Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority. Miss Grows. How are you doing today? I'm great. How are you doing, Governor? It looks like you got a lot of activity in the background there. I think everybody is frozen right now. Well, they look like they've been When you and I talked 15 minutes ago. There's a lot of activity going on back there. Yeah, we're just waiting to talk to you were excited about today. E. I know. We've got some seniors they're going to be vaccinated on. Do we have the Ohio National Guard? Who's going to be doing that? Maybe we'll start with Philip Zamora. Mr. Zamora, Uh, where is where you raise your hand? He's coming over. All right. Uh huh. No. So we'll we'll okay on make a place for you there. Hey, how you doing today, sir? Because Mhm. Are you ready to get vaccinated? Yes, I am. All right. We're gonna watch you do it. Is that okay? By with May? Okay. Let's do it. Yeah. 10 13 1949 I think. More. Okay. Mhm. Ready? Yep. Uh huh. Mhm. What? Didn't feel. Okay. Wait. So how you doing, sir? Fine, sir. Okay. Where you tell me. Tell me the truth. That you're looking forward to this or not. Yeah, e understand. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Well, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We now have Miss Bentley. Uh, Arlene Bentley is also here, and, uh, how are you doing today? Hi. And are you looking forward to this or not? Yes, I am. I have several family members that have had coded Finally disease. Could be. So I'm looking forward to having this very beneficial look, everyone. Well, good. Well, we're glad you're getting it today. Very, very much, and we'll let you. We'll watch you, if that's okay. That's fine. Yeah. Does it make ready? Yeah. Nothing else doing okay, Miss Bentley. I'm fine. Are you doing okay? Yes, I'm All right. Okay. Well, we thank way. Thank both of you very much. Thank you. Well, everybody get back to work back there, So to see everybody. Hello? The National Guard and all of you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. We're gonna now see a little video of our friend Jimmy Malone, who's getting vaccinated. Jimmy has been a long time radio host on W M. J I in Cleveland, and we thank Jimmy for rolling up his sleeves, getting the shot and also encouraging all his listeners to do the same. And if this was a live shot, I would Jimmy a hard time about those muscles he's got there. I did not realize that Jimmy was working out that much. So see how he's doing. Looks like he's okay, Jimmy. Thank you very much for doing that way. Appreciate it. Let me talk for a moment about nursing homes and kind of bring everybody up to date on some data. As we look at one of the slides, we know that this is where we've seen a large number of our of our cases over half our deaths. And, you know, we put a real emphasis on going into the nursing homes into the assisted living. And now we're, you know, leading up to something we're going to start next week, which is where we're going to continue to put vaccine into the nursing home so that people who may have missed it the first time, or new residents who are coming in who have not been vaccinated or new employees air coming in. So it's very important for us us to do that. Let me look. Take a look at the slide. This is a slide. And as comparing these these air cases long term care as well as the general, the general cases So what you will see here in the black and you can follow it through here. But what you see in the black eyes number of number of cases and there's obviously scale differently, and you can see on each side of the chart. But the number of cases in generally in the state that we have, and then the number of cases that week in the nursing homes and so what you can see is a rather dramatic change. They're both going down, but the number of cases in the nursing home, which is this light, light light blue that you see right here, um, has gone down much more dramatically. Eso It is something that we really are very happy to see on just to take a couple snapshots. November 29th 2020. Uh, there were that week there were 2697 cases in a long term care facilities. Of the new cases the week of January 17th. That week, that number was down to 612. That is a very, very, very significant drop. 77% drop. And again, you see it here. Now, these numbers from here on are still incomplete, so we don't have the full numbers yet. But even if you go out here, uh, you know, you see quite a change. So we're very, very happy with that and that that that's a very good thing, Aziz. We see now we're gonna go look at the hospital slides. Eric, if we could do that, I guess you got him up there already. Um, we continue to go down. We're very, very happy about that. Um, 1 862 people in our hospitals now who have co vid. You can see how this number has gone going down. Um, you know, probably a couple causes. One is the lowering of cases overall, But another one, I'm sure, is the chart that we showed you just a moment ago. Which is what? When we really tamp the fire down in the nursing homes. Um, those are people who many times end up in the hospital. We've had over half the deaths will come out of the nursing home, So probably half the hospitalizations have come out of the nursing home. So one of the real benefits, obviously the most direct benefit is to that particular resident of the nursing home who doesn't get the cova. But we also have the benefit of free, more space up in our hospitals. And so when you look at this coming down in the hospitals, you know it is a result of lower cases overall, but it's also a result of significant vaccination, uh, in in those nursing homes. So we're very happy about that. And one of the fringe benefits as we see this number, uh, the curfew we indicated two weeks ago that if we got below 2500 and we got below 2500 and we kept that for seven days. Where we've blown through that and what we said is, if we did that, then we would be able to take the curfew you off. So the curfew actually expired officially at noon today. So there's no curfew now. We may in the future, we don't know. I have to put a curfew back on. We certainly hope we do not, but it's very important. And I think doctors, we'll say, very important for us to continue to do what we've been doing. Let's get the vaccine in our arms as quick as we can, but at the same time, we've got to continue where a mass. We've got to continue to keep the distancing. We check on the mass worrying every week. Sampling throughout the state of Ohio in retail establishments is about 93% and it's been holding steady, so we gotta keep it up there. Um, that's, you know, just part of what we're gonna have to do is we go through this this period of time, but we don't know is where what what's gonna happen with the variance. Um, you've seen some of the national stories about how fast it replicates. We don't know, so we could be back in a situation where have a climbing cases. We certainly hope we don't do that, but we all can control this to some extent. In one way, we can control us to continue our mask, continue to keep the distance, Uh, whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in schools, Whether it's our own personal personal lives, let's turn to schools. One of our goals, of course, has been to get kids back in school, and we set a goal of March 1. Have every child back in school, and we ask our schools to commit to that every school, but one in the state has committed to doing that. But the good news is, well, two things. We're well into our second week of vaccinations in schools that is going very well at the end of this week. By the end of this weekend, we will be about halfway through, vaccinating in the personnel in our schools across the state. So big big job is going well. We're very happy where we are. A couple of days will be about 50% done. So that's a good thing. The other good thing is that we're already seeing a very significant change in schools going from totally remote on who were just very, very, very happy where we are there. And Eric e. Guess you've got that shirt already up here. Let me just look show you this, um, full remote, which is what we've been looking at. This is a snapshot of where we are this week. So we do this, we do this snapshot every week, and you can see that the numbers have changed. The percentage of different of the percentage of district's that air totally remote is now only 5.1%. That constitutes 12.5% of our students. So we're really moving, uh, in the in the right direction, getting our kids back in school, and we're very happy. Very happy about that. So let me just give you a few figures about how much vaccine we're getting. First doses the week that we're in right now, um 178,722 Madonna infighter combined. Then we have a federal pharmacy program a to 35,800 so total coming into Ohio this week. This week, which basically came in Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Um, 214,525 214,005. 25. The doses for next week are similar. They they're going to total 223,000. 025 223,000 0 to 5. Um, so we're moving in the right direction. Um, just to give you a little heads up this week, we're seeing now Rite Aid, uh, part of the federal pharmacy program. Right? Aid will being doing vaccinations in 164 of its stores, and Kroger will expand to all 194 of its stores in Ohio. So just to give you a heads up of what is coming and what is actually taking place right now, um might also say that we're we'll be adding next week, um, 17 uh, 17 new independent pharmacies that will take us up to 36 independent pharmacies. And we will continue to grow those as we move forward. And as we move as we look down the line, you know, at some point we will add to these pharmacies and health departments and hospitals. We will add bigger mawr Mawr mass vaccination sites. And that is when we get Mawr Vaccine and coming into the state. And that's been our plan all the way around. Let's go look at the rest of the data. You'll see a big change in deaths. And again, this director McLeod has talked about this. Talked to the press about this today. Um, this'll was a and error that was made, Um, basically the reconciliation. And I won't go into it because she went through it today earlier. But the reconciliation was not taking place. We had a big surgeon desk. They all do not get reconciled the way it should have happened. We found out about it recently, and now they're being reconciled over the next few days. And so you'll see a jump today, tomorrow, maybe the next day. We're not sure exactly how many days it's gonna take, but you're gonna see a distorted number in in the number of deaths way believe that that's gonna put us back on track to where we actually are. So this was a failure of reconciliation not taking place and having mawr. More cases coming in, more deaths sadly, were coming in. So we're getting that straighten out. We believe that for today approximately 650 of these deaths air from the reconciliation that is ongoing. So, in other words added, added to this figure about 6 50 um, so so 71 would have been the normal cases we were thought would have would have come in. Let's go to our next slide. Eric, this is our all County is ranked again. This is what we ask you to look at to see the spread in your county will go the next one. Eric in the top, the top counties Brown County again about seven times the what the CDC says is, ah, high incident incident level. Next lie Eric. Continuation Slide basically looks the same. A zit has looked for the past the past few weeks. Samos. Last week. I want to talk now about mhm part of our commitment to reduce the number of lives lost to Cova. We directed the Department of Health and our health care providers to prioritize people with developmental disabilities and severe medical conditions for vaccination. So that has been ongoing for the last several weeks. Our county boards of developmental disabilities, in partnership with local health departments and I want to point out partnership with our Children's hospitals, have worked over the last three weeks to identify, to schedule, transport and vaccinate this high risk group of individuals. We wanted to go even though they're not 65. But these were people who have a very high risk if they get covert extremely high risk. And so this effort has been ongoing, and it's been ongoing specifically with people with developmental disabilities. The last three weeks through this effort, we've heard incredible stories of local collaboration, the incredible planning that's gone into assisting people in getting access to this vaccine. Ah, today we believe approximately 12,000 individuals who come under this category have been vaccinated, and we're very happy about that. We're going to continue our work, uh, to work with our local partners are local developmental disability boards to make sure that the rest of the people in this group are in fact contacted, and those who want the vaccine to, in fact received the vaccines. There's a work in progress not done. People are still eligible in this group, but we got 12,000 now. Next week. Ohioans who have certain conditions the same conditions we talked about, um, certain conditions they're born with, or those that were diagnosed in childhood and carried into adulthood will be able to begin receiving Cova 19 vaccines again, even though they're not 65. Individuals with these conditions face significantly higher risk for adverse co vid 19 outcomes. We've listed these conditions before, but as we approach the first day when individuals who qualify can get a shot, that will be next Monday. We thought it would be good for Dr Vanderhof to explain these conditions in mawr detail and explain how individuals who qualify couldn't get a shot. Let me explain again the rationale we have identified. Doctors have identified approximately 200,000 people in this state who are under the age of 65 who have a very high risk of adversary result adverse result. If in fact they get Koven, it is it is a prescribed list, and so we would ask you take a look at that list. It's the same list we've been presenting. We tried to make it clearer particularly for patients. So when you look at that today, I think you'll find it's a little easier to read a little easier to understand. But I'm gonna have now. Dr Vanderhof explain two things. Who's in the groups? Who's in this? This group that we're talking about? In addition to that, how these individuals could get vaccinated. Doctor Vanderhof Thank you very much, Governor. Well, as you've noted, overall age really is our very best predictor of one's risk of serious illness or death from Kobe 19. But as our understanding of the virus grows, medical science has pointed us to these conditions with which we may be born or developing childhood that also place those old enough to receive the vaccine at serious risk. Now, remember, vaccine eligibility starts at at least 16 years old, professor and 18 for Madonna, you'll recall, is the governor noted, we've shared this list previously. We developed the list in consultation with medical professionals from across the state. Based on the best evidence available from the 500 we've reflected on subsequent feedback from medical professionals, patients and families, and as the governor noted, we've made some refinements to ensure that what we're sharing today describes the conditions on the list even more clearly. So let's go through the conditions on the list. First, we have sickle cell anemia than down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, spina bifida. I think those air, all diagnoses people have heard about, and it's fairly clear what we mean by those. But next we have people born with severe heart defects requiring ongoing medical care. So this refers to those with heart defects who still require regular care from their heart doctor. This would not include the many Ohioans who, thankfully, had heart surgery as a young child. But now we're doing very well and don't need to see their heart doctor regularly. Next on the list people with severe Type one diabetes who have been hospitalized for this in the past year. This category applies to what has been commonly called juvenile diabetes. It's the kind of diabetes that usually starts at a young age and requires insulin, not the kind of diabetes that so many developed later in life and for which they often begin their treatment with pills. Also, even among those with Type one diabetes, we're asking that vaccination at this time be restricted to those who may have not been able to achieve good control of their blood sugars and have needed to go to the hospital for the treatment of things like diabetic ketoacidosis. All right, Next on the list we have Fennel Keaton Nouria, also known as PK You tay Sachs, another rare inherited metabolic disorders. If you have any question about whether you have a rare metabolic disorder, just ask your doctor. Next, we have epilepsy with continuing seizures, hydrocephalus, microcephaly and other severe neurological disorders. Now this would expressly not apply to the many people who had febrile seizures early in childhood, but today are doing just fine. Next on the list Turner Syndrome, fragile X, Prader Willi syndrome and other severe genetic disorders. Thes conditions are also referred to as chromosomal disorders. Next, we have people with severe asthma again. In this case, we're not talking about the vast majority of us who have asthma but do very well with our inhalers and other medications. Rather, we're referring to those whose asthma is much more serious and has taken them to the hospital in the past year. Next Alfa and Beta Fallacy. Mia, these air blood problems for which most patients with the problem see a specialist and, finally, solid organ transplant candidates and recipients. So again, it's, the governor noted, next week will open vaccination to everyone on the above list. Now we're asking providers to clearly display this definition of the one B group on their websites to help inform patients about whether they're eligible. No, that many eligible patients in this category who were hospitalized in the past year may receive outreach from their treating hospital to schedule your vaccination with them. Now, if a patient chooses vaccination at a pharmacy or a local health department, the state will not require additional documentation. We will, however, be asking providers to instruct patients to affirm their eligibility at registration and or to confirm that verbally when they receive their vaccination. Finally, the state will not be monitoring correct that the state will be monitoring this populations vaccination rate, and we're going to be doing that to ensure that there is uptake and that there is not abuse of the category. We'll do that through our disease reporting system, so hopefully that provides a little bit more information and a little bit more detail. Thank you, Governor. Doctor. Thank you very much, Lieutenant. Governor. Thanks, Governor. Uh, it was great news on the vaccine strategy. It's great to see that we have nearly 90% of our school district's back to some form of in person education. The nursing home numbers Amazing. Uh, the impact that the vaccine targeted at that population. How that's changed things around on. We're seeing the results of that with the hospitalizations down, uh, which is another great sign on I know for many people, I spoke with the restaurant association yesterday. The idea now that because of the health situation because of the vaccine strategy is better still still not perfect, but better now they're going to be able to have some expanded hours. And the restaurants governor wanted to make sure that they reassured you on the public that they're going to adhere to the to the safety protocols that are in place. They know that they want their customers and everyone to know that when you come out to go to their facilities, that that the safety protocols will still be in place for all of those all of those facilities. Um, I I want to start out, you know, focusing a Z. I have a lot on the education and economic recovery conversation. And today is international is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. And, uh, you know, I was just educating a couple of the of the women that work here on the the in the governor's office. About the first person to win. Uh, two Nobel Prizes was Marie Curie, and, uh, and the leading researcher for Madonna was was ah, female who led that champion that cause that Madonna and we have a lot of opportunity for women in science in the state, particularly through the Choose Ohio First Scholarship program. So if you have ah ah, daughter or granddaughter, that's maybe thinking about science or has that aptitude Take a look at all of the opportunities we have for for science education. You know, we have these innovation centers one in Cincinnati and Innovation District, another one that we announced in Cleveland are doing some world class research in these areas and and we courage our girls and young women Teoh Teik, Anak aed emmick role in science and do some of these great things. Also, Governor a, uh, an announcement today, uh, that we officially surpassed the 5000 mark for Ohioans who graduated with the print to the apprenticeship Ohio program. Since you and I took office, we were We were pushing apprenticeships. We wanted to see more of them. This is a big benchmark for Ohio to put the number precisely. It's 5000, 236 graduates. So congratulations to all those graduates. Remember how an apprenticeship works you earn while you learn. On average, these jobs pay $60,000 a year when they're complete, and you don't have the high cost of of of tuition because, uh, these programs you work with your employer to develop these skills. Ohio is currently number one in the country. Among states who run registered apprenticeship programs at the state level were number four, uh, in terms of the number of states who run registered federal apprenticeship programs. So we have, uh, we currently have 19,578 Ohioans in the program. You could earn this apprenticeship certification within 2 to 4 years on, as I mentioned at the end. No debt and a great career there. Yes, in the traditional fields like construction and manufacturing, which we all think about when we think apprenticeship. But it's also an I T. And in healthcare some professions that we sometimes don't think about when we think about apprenticeship programs and this, we have one of the most powerful apprenticeship programs in the country. Right here in Ohio, it's mature. Uh, it works well. There are a lot of great opportunities. And if you or son, daughter, grandson granddaughter are interested, go to apprenticeship dot Ohio dot gov for more information apprenticeship that Ohio dot gov This is all part of our educational and economic recovery preparing people for the jobs that we know exist, doing it in an affordable way and helping make sure that the employers for state have the skills that they need, uh, in their workforce to achieve success. So all great news, governor. And with that, I'll turn it back over to you. Great Lieutenant Governor. Thank you. Were ready for questions. Governor. First question days from Alex Ebert at Bloomberg Governor. Thanks so much for having this. Can you please elaborate on what the state intends to do to correct some issues it's finding with unemployment fraud. The latest update would be really helpful. We received a released today indicating that we had almost a 200% spike in fraudulent potential claims filed last week. So love to hear what the state is gonna dio, especially considering your the probably kind of sticking out in your name. Sure, it's ah, it's a national problem. We're very concerned by it as we saw that huge jump. Aziz, the department has explained. Um, no indication is that the great deal of that is fraud. I know. Lieutenant Governor, uh, my request has been working on that, Uh, let him answer the question. And John Yeah, uh, is you probably saw. And the release that was issued by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services that that there was a 202% increase week over week in the number off claims that were filed, 140,000 claims filed. 44,000 of those were initially flagged for suspicion of fraudulent activity. So that's 31% of those right off the top that they believed or fraudulent. Uh, these attempts at fraud beyond those flags are being investigated for criminal activity. And Aziz, we know when you have this problem, it will slow up the process for processing many of the legitimate claims. That's the one of the unfortunate problems we have when we have people from around the world attempting to defraud the unemployment compensation systems that each state has in administering these programs. Uh, many of the claims of the 140,000 that were, um, filed that are legitimate will be processed and paid. Uh, many more will be delayed, though, until they're properly qualified to make sure we don't send out money that shouldn't be sent out, but also trying to do that as quickly as possible so that we get the money out to the people who deserve it. Um, we will have, uh, Jeff Freaky, who is the private sector lead on the partnership that they created that we've created under the governor's request at the Department of Job and Family Services. He will be available next week, and we will have those who who are dealing with this in the private sector is look international. Cyber fraud activity is something that the private sector is dealing with. The public sector's dealing with on. We will have Jeff available next week to give a report on how this is working with the private public partnership that we've created. I talked with director Henderson who would be with us today, but she's testifying before the Legislature right now on, and she was, uh, really appreciative of what the private sector cyber folks have brought to this conversation. So I think that that is, uh, the best information we have available now on what we're doing. I would also say it's worth noting that since last Friday, because the team has been working to get the to get the funding out to the people who qualify. Since last Friday, they paid out $190 million to 372,000 Ohioans receiving pandemic unemployment assistance, which again includes Theoden Inal $300 a week that they're eligible for under the federal program. In the last 11 days, they sent out around $326 million to more than than 586,000 Ohioans. So you see the scope off what the problem is, how much money has gone out the door, uh, toe how maney Thio these many Ohioans who qualified for it? Andi, that's the challenge Is that when you have, you know, all states are dealing with it? It is there are people attempting to commit these frauds from around the globe. Jeremy Pelzer. By the way, if he's Jeremy's on today, Jeremy did a did a great job in an article, uh, Cleveland dot com, explaining the nature of what's going on. But we'll have Jeff Freaky and the team on next week to explain more detail what we're doing to confront it. Next question is from Patrick O'Donnell, the 74 Million or Go Hey, Patrick. Hi. So we've talked a couple times about the March 1 school reopening date and have some district's may open later. Um, Akron has said, has set March 22nd as their opening. Cleveland's actually looking at pushing it till after their Easter break, which could be April 6. Um, what are your thoughts about that? Um, you know, we really need him to be back in by March 1. Um, every school signed the document that said they would be back in March 1, and, you know, we allow them to be hybrid. We allow them obviously to be totally back. But we really need to get these kids back in school. And, you know, when you looked at what, the superintendent, public instruction, what? The Department of Education, what they released, it was consistent with what I've been hearing from parents. We've been hearing from educators that there's some kids who do find remotely s, um, even, even like it better. Uh, some kids do, okay, And some kids don't do very well. And my concern, frankly, is the Children who have been out of school since March who have really not been in school at all. They've been remote, and that has been inconsistent for some of them. Some of them have not, you know, been online very much eso all kinds of stories and concerns. And so I really have a concern about that. And, you know, the reason that we're devoting uh, over 200,000 doses first doses to our teachers is to get our kids back in school. This is a major commitment, but we know that many kids are not getting the socialization they need. They Some Children are having mental health problems because of this, and that's not even talk about the academic challenges. So there's a lot of reasons to put kids back in school Now. If a parent doesn't want their child back in school, that's the parents decision. That's the family's decision. We respect that. But e I would hope that these schools would look at this and say, This is something we could do And you know, we know so much more today than we knew When this started, we had no idea how powerful mass could be. I started hearing about it. We put in order on, and I know a lot of people were saying, You know the wines crazy, You're gonna compel kindergarten kids to wear mask And we did that. And what we found is that kids could buy large some exceptions, but by and large can wear mask and they're fine. Well, then, what we started hearing from principals and superintendents and teachers is the quarantine is too tough, because guess what's happening when kids air in a classroom and there maybe they're closer than 6 ft, but they're further than 3 ft, and we see see was requiring these Children to be, um there there Guideline Waas that if somebody came down with covert in the classroom, anybody that was close to that within 6 ft closer than 6 ft needed to be quarantined. Then we had superintendents and principals telling us, Look, we're quarantined, but no one ever gets sick, even though we had even that even though that child was exposed. So Anatoly, for several months we kept hearing this. So we then went in and tested, and what we found is that was consistent with what's, um, testing that's been done on the national level in the schools is that the spread in schools is not very much in the classroom. So you put those those things together on ad all those facts, and then you add that anybody in school it wants to could be vaccinated. Think that teachers should have good conference and custodians and cooks and bus drivers, and anybody who works in the building should have good confidence. There's laws, the protocols are followed and everyone continues to wear a mask, and everyone continues to follow all the protocols that have been laid out there. It's a pretty safe environment, so I would just urge, uh, anyone who's making these decisions, Please. We need you back in by March 1st, and I want to congratulate the schools that are starting. We've had some schools that have been out for a long time. Andi have even started. They started now. And if you look at the numbers, if you look at the numbers, uh, that we just showed you down to a relatively small percentage of the school district's that air now totally still totally remote. Now some may have hit a bump in the road and have some kids who came down the covert or somebody came down the cova and they had to isolate him, but and they're out for a week or they're out for two weeks. We understand that, but we hope everybody comes back by March 1. John. Governor. Yeah. Look, we've learned so much, and the evidence is clear. Everybody from the C. D. C. To the Ohio Department of Health and others have have have the evidence that when you wear masks and you follow the protocol, school is a safe place to be on. And look, it's especially safe after you get a vaccination. We see that from even nursing home patients and people who are the most vulnerable once they have the vaccination. Uh, it's working, and we also have the evidence of schools. Many schools have been open throughout either five days a week or hybrid, and they've managed to do it safely. And for those schools that air the holdouts, uh, the kids need you. We need you back open to serve them. Next question is from Danielle. Bridget, Hannah News Service. Hello, Governor. Can you go into a little bit more detail on how the state missed these 4000 deaths? And why should we trust the case numbers? Hospitalization numbers. You know, what is the administration doing to make make sure that you know you can trust these numbers? Yeah, well, let me get to the director. Uh, Director, I think you are on there. I am, Governor. Thank you for the question, Danny. Um, we are actually taking on several efforts at the same time, and I do understand the concern. Um, I was the first one to push back because that that number didn't seem correct with me. I had concerns about it, so I was, in fact, the first one to push back, but we're working with staff. We have been working with staff to understand the process, the points of entry for death data, much like other states. We have two points of entry when we received death data, and it's really the reconciliation of that data that was not done timely. And there was a kind of a miss their that created these numbers. We've restructured the bureau. It's in the Bureau of Infectious Diseases. We've restructured that department, including leadership. We've added additional resource is to resolve the issue quickly so that we could get these numbers in and not spend any more time than necessary. With uncertainty in our daily numbers. We're working on a new process and quality assurance process going forward, and we're also doing a thorough taking this opportunity with these additional resource is and restructuring to do a thorough review of everything that's been reported and not yet reported to get a second look. We're also starting what we would refer to as their standard administrative review. Asato Why this was not flagged sooner. As you know, we talked about last year with cases these, uh, Department of Health, whether local or state, are not really organized, have not really in the past been organized to report things in real time. And that has created some issues where by no means the only state to go through this. Most recently, Indiana announced on February 4th that they were adding about 1500 more deaths. My understanding is that the same reason it was a reconciliation between the two entry points for death data? I know there was some also some reevaluation and changes in the in Washington state in December and Texas last July. But I understand the concern. I'm quite confident of the new processes we have in place and the new eyes on this and certainly, uh, this will look much different, better and accurate going forward. But thank you for the question. Next question is from Sarah Arthur's at the Finley career. I'm so sorry. Can you hear me now, Sarah? I can hear you. Yes s Oh, sorry. I'm wondering if you can speak to concerns about the new variants and whether concerns that the new, more contagious variants become more common. Is that affecting or changing your decision making at all with regard to the pandemic? Well, it's not Yes, and I'm gonna let Dr Vanderhof talk about it. Uh, he's the person that should be talking about this. He's the person who advises me about it. But yes, we're concerned about it and you know, it's again. If anyone needs a reason to continue to wear a mask and continue to be careful if this is a good reason Dr. Vanderhof? Yes, thank you. I think it's a very important question on I'm going to touch on two points. First, I think a lot of questions have arisen in people's minds about whether our vaccines are still going to be good against the new variants. And the short answer that I want people to take home is yes. First, we now have multiple studies in the laboratory of the current vaccines, the MMR and a vaccines that have shown that even in the face of the most serious of the variance, there appear to be, uh, still very good antibody responses measured in the laboratory. But most importantly, we now have the data that Johnson and Johnson shared about their vaccine in the rial world, where it was studied in South Africa and Brazil to geography, ease that have two of the most worrisome of the variants, and their vaccine was very effective. In fact, it was 100% effective at preventing hospitalization and death, which are really the end points that matter the most. So that's point number one point number two is that what we need to think about when we think about these viruses thes variants is that the virus is becoming mawr contagious, and it's more contagious because it just takes less of it to make us sick. But our masks and are distancing still work very, very well. And we've known for a long time that there are a few things about our masks that we have to pay attention to. And you saw the CDC just yesterday provided clarification about this. First, it's the mask you where that works, So let's wear a mask. Secondly, we have long advocated that the mask that we where if we were a cloth one, make sure it's a two layer cloth mask, work purchase, a medical grade surgical mask or one of those K N 95 masks and then third fit matters. Make sure that mask fits snugly everywhere, including sometimes those little pouches that formed by our cheeks. Tuck that in if you have to. If it's not fitting snugly, Thank you, Governor. Like a doctor. Next question is from Jamaat e a W H i O in Dayton Gender. Thank you. You've started the K through 12 vaccination vaccination for teachers. Let's look forward. What's your plan for college and university professors? Professional staff? Could they be in the next group for the vaccine, and if not, when would they be eligible? Well, Jim, one of things that we have done is make mawr testing available at our colleges and universities, and I want to really congratulate them. We've worked directly with them. Chancellor Gardner has worked directly with them. Um and so they're seeing what they're doing. More testing. We made more testing available for them. So as's faras, the vaccination, Certainly there will be some members of their faculty who are 65 years of age in order and certainly, you know they're eligible for it now. But is we look to where we go from here, where we still do not have enough vaccine. We've got to really focus on the most vulnerable on the most vulnerable or the 200,000 people Dr Vanderhof described. And I described today who next month, next money will be able to start being vaccinated and the two million people Ohio residents 65 years of age and older. And you can look at our chart and we're making progress. I think we're up to about 56% 57% of those who are 80 and above. We're seeing that 70 to 80 numbers go up appreciably, and this week we're gonna start seeing the 60 and above or 65 above. Numbers go up. But we've got a long way to go, Jim, before we get you know, everybody in that two million group of people 65 years of age and older vaccinated. And just to remind everybody we're going by the numbers, we're going by the science. We're going by whose most vulnerable 87% of all deaths have come in this state from people 65 years of age and older. So we have to stay focused, um, on what will save the most lives. And, you know, this has been successful. If you look at what's happened in the nursing homes we've had very, very good success. We've taken the cases down. The deaths are lagging indicator. But the deaths, they're gonna gonna continue to go down from here. So we've got to just stay focused on what the science tells us. We hope to be vaccinating everyone by this summer. I don't know what what date. This thing will really pop open, but I'm optimistic. Pfizer, you know, will continue to expand some maternal expand some. I had the opportunity, um, this week to talk directly, um, to, uh, Johnson and Johnson and got some pretty good news from them. I feel pretty confident that, you know, that's going to get approved, and once it's approved, they're ready. They told us they're ready to ship show. We're optimistic we're gonna be able to reach everybody, but we gotta take this thing one step at a time. Next question is from Kevin Barry. A W E W s in Cleveland. Hi, Governor, says Kevin Barry from News five in Cleveland was had a question about the February 15th. I guess group that becomes eligible for vaccines with severe conditions. Does that mean that any provider across the state so the pharmacies Health Department hospitals will be allowed to vaccinate that population. And then how do you plan on handling any abuse that you find? Because it seems like the stage relying kind of on the honor system for someone to say that they have a condition in order to qualify starting on Monday. You know, I think when people the answer, first of all, the answer is yes, they can get that. What we think is going to happen in most cases is that most of these individuals are being treated by a doctor. Most of these individuals are in the hospital system. Anybody who has these individuals in their system will be able to reach out directly to them and were encouraged them to reach out to your patient. And now that won't cover everybody. But it covers will cover a large percentage of these individuals. So we're going to be generally dealing with doctors. Hospitals who know their patient know their condition. No, that in fact, they do qualify. But we did not want to create barriers. And we talked about how we're gonna do this. Do we require a doctor's certificate? Do we make them go in and We just looked at this and said, Look, all you're going to be doing is disadvantaging Ah, poor person. You're gonna be disadvantaging someone who can't go through these barriers or around these air over these barriers. And so, yes, to some extent, we're relying on people's good faith. I think when people understand that, uh, we are, we have a small amount of vaccine we've got to cover. At first, the most vulnerable people, everybody eventually is going to get it. But the people who need to be covered the most, I think most oh, Highlands will not want to be vaccinated and jump in line in front of somebody who has a mawr. Uh, different will have a much more difficult time if, in fact, they get the coronavirus. So is it, you know, on a trust basis? Yeah, I trust O Highlands. And will there be some abuses? Sure, there's gonna be some abuses, but, you know, to erect a bunch of barriers because a few might abuse it did not seem to be the logical thing to do and did not seem to me to be the right thing to do. Next question is from Jeff Reddick at W s Y X in Columbus. Jeff, afternoon, governor on education. We talked a lot about getting kids back in the classroom. Couple things. Will you direct OD to request a federal waiver on standardized tests? And when you talk with the speaker and the Senate president, what's what's their stance on priority on waving the standardized tests? And is it at all likely they could pass it before the test begin? Well, I saw a report in the news media what the Senate president thought about it. I think I'm aligned with with him. Um and I want to talk to the speaker as well, and that is basically that nothing wrong with having a test, but because we do want to know where students are. But, um, you know, having consequences, the reports in regard to schools, I think that's it to me. At least that's a different. That's a different question, but this is something that you know. I need to consult with the Legislature and get their input and well will come out with a policy. But that's my kind of first take on it anyway. Next question, that's from Chelsea. Second wk F and digging. Hi there, Governor DeWine. So the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services says the fraud review will also impact legitimate claims. What is your message to Ohio and to have been flagged for fraud who genuinely need the money and haven't been paid in months? How is it possible that the state of Ohio was able to be defrauded of millions of dollars? Well, everyone is having this problem. I mean, we have international Gangsters. Let's call them what they are. They're international Gangsters who are who are moving in, uh, in preying on the situation. So I'm gonna let Lieutenant Governor jump in here. He spent a good part today looking at this and working on it, and we're gonna continue the most important thing. I think that we're doing, you know, we've reached out to the private sector we're bringing experts in, experts have started, they've loaned us individuals, and it's the lieutenant governor talked about a little while ago. Um, you know, you'll get the chance to hear from one of these experts who deals with these things every day in the private sector. So this is what certainly the private sector has toe has to deal with for lieutenant governors on or not wear a little, uh, little difficulty there, but yeah, I do, Governor, Look, this is the balance that we have is that we have tens, hundreds of thousands of attempts at fraud from criminals and these air tax dollars federal tax dollars in most cases. But there's still your tax dollars, and we don't want them to go out to criminals who are trying to defraud the American taxpayer. So we have the obligation to flag them and to make sure that they are legitimate before we pay them out. The team also recognizes that there are a lot of people who are struggling who need this money and they will get. If you have a legitimate claim, you will get every penny that you're eligible for, and that reassurance is important to know. Um, they're working through these as quickly as they can. I mentioned just in the last 11 days $326 million to more than 586,000 Ohioans went off the door. I talked with the director this morning. She and her team appreciate the dual responsibility they have to protect tax dollars and serve their customers the people who are in need and, uh, Jeff Ricky, who's leading the private sector team will be We're gonna make him available next week. They've been spending the time since the governor announced this effort to work with the team. They're working very well together, but this is an enormous task. They face this. A lot of the people that we're bringing in our from the financial sector banking insurance who are facing these kinds of fraudulent activities on a regular basis. But understand this is bigger than just unemployment. This is cyber security fraud on a global nature. On there are a lot of ingredients in to getting it right. But all hands are on deck to try to sort through these manually, using technology to sort through HMAS quickly as they can to serve both the customers and protect the taxpayers. Next question is from Nathan Hart at WCPO in Cincinnati. Hi, Governor. Before the curfew started, there was a 10 PM last call order. I was wondering now that the curfew has been lifted. If there were any discussions or plans, toe, bring the last call order back No way don't intend to do that unless the circumstances change. If they change, we'll change what we do. But no, we have no intention of doing that at this point. Next question is from Trevor Peters, A W X, I X and Cincinnati Governor. Can you hear me? Can you said the curfew could be reimposed if trends do start to go south again. Are you sticking with 2500 hospitalizations for seven days to reimpose it? Is that the threshold the bar and restaurant owners should be monitoring for the future? Well, that's a lagging indicator. As we know, I think that we'll look at all the facts. But, you know, that's certainly gonna be something we're gonna look at, and we kind of lay that out. And that will certainly be part of the analysis. Um, you know, we could have some other facts that would change that. But based upon what we know now, that would be, you know, something that we will we will look at. And that will be kind of again understanding that it's a lagging indicator. And, you know, the trend line is what you really look at. Where's the movement movements down now. It's great. Um, what's gonna What's gonna happen in the future? I don't I don't think we know. So we hope that this stays down. We always hope it stays down. But we've learned a lot in this past year. One thing we've learned is we never know exactly what this virus is going to do. Next question is from Laura Hancock it Cleveland dot com Laura. Hey, Governor, Um, I was wondering, kind of going back to the error that happened with the health Department. We now that there was a major flaw in the reporting. And then, of course, our unemployment numbers, um, are out of whack because of widespread fraud. As we've discussed today, how can we trust the vaccination data for any numbers the state is realizing? And also in terms of accountability? Is anybody being punished for what happened at the Health Department? Well, I think first of all, I'm going to refer to the director director, and I have talked about all these things as far as what's going on in the in the health department. And what happened is for, you know, as far as unemployment, I think thes air apples and oranges. I mean, this is a different situation. I mean, you mentioned the fraud. Fraud is occurring everywhere. Um, and that's something that we all have to deal with. People in the private sector have to deal with people in the public sector, Have to deal with a very different world than it was five years ago Are 10 years ago. But as far as the Health Department, I'll go directly to the director and let her let her answer that. Thank you, Laura. The answer to that question a Zai mentioned earlier. We're starting. What is our standard administrative review process as to how the issue arose and why it was not flagged sooner. And I'm really not able to comment on anything more than that until that's completed. Next question is from Karina Chung at WCMH in Columbus. Oh, Governor, how are you? Um, construction for you. I know that we don't typically look at deaths when making decisions on restrictions, but knowing that we saw so many a big increase here, would that have changed anything for you? So I'm not sure I e got all the question was the last part of question. Does that mean anything to me, is what you said. Would that have changed anything for you in the past? Restrictions that we had? No. Um, you know, I think we we knew that we were seeing a spike way saw a spike and the reason that this wasn't caught, it appears. And the director says, we've got to get further into this, but is because of the surge that was occurring. So we knew that there was a surge. The other thing, When you see when you see deaths, deaths are very, you know, are lagging indicator. So what you want to do is to be in front of things instead of behind things. So I don't know that that would have, you know, changed any decision, but yeah, it's a riel tragedy, and I'm impacted by any deaths, and I'm certainly impacted by these deaths. Next question is from Joe Ingles at Ohio Public Radio and television. Joe. Hello, Governor. Um, I wanted to ask you were continuing to hear from Ohioans who are 80 and over. They cannot get scheduled for shots. They're disillusioned when they see a younger person gaming the system, and that is happening to get a shot ahead of them. We have people who need unemployment checks. Now their lives are hanging in the balance. They cannot pay their mortgage. And we hear you telling people that have patients that you're working through it. You're investigating. You're doing all these things, But some people are just losing hope. What do you say? What do you do with them? Well, I understand, Joe, and I think I've made this clear that people should be impatient. I would be in patient. I would be upset. Understand that on the on the vaccines we're now at, I believe I've glanced at it quickly before I came in here somewhere around 55% of the people 80 and above. We anticipate just by talking to people ating above that, the uptake is going to be very high, that many, many people. And so one of our goals is to continue Thio find ways so that we could drive these this number of the 80 year olds and above up. I know, for example, of doctors who are going through literally going through their list and calling their 80 year olds and calling their 90 year olds and 100 year olds and telling them, You know, we will prioritize you and that is perfectly legitimate, and that is fine if they do that. So we some states started at 65. We said that didn't seem right. We started with 80. They've got a head start. But I understand that there's still 80 year olds and 90 year olds, maybe 100 year olds who are still having no difficulty. But with the increase in the vaccine is coming and a pretty good shot this week, with most of it going 3/4 of it basically going to that age group. I think that, you know, you're gonna start seeing those numbers go up and people will. Still for the next few weeks, we're still going to be. It's still supply and demand. There's gonna be more demand than there is supply. But we're gonna hang with this 65 group and above, Uh, until we're satisfied that we've saturated that age group and that people who have wanted it have had the opportunity to get it. We also are very focused on making it convenient what you saw. Director McIlroy the charge that she is leading and going into elderly housing again is a way that we could reach people close to their home. We also are, you know, are working on ways to go out and do this single shot, the the individual who is in their own home, who might be 90 years of age. But it's still still in their own home. So we're gonna continue to make these efforts. We know it's not perfect. If I wanted to get a vaccine this week and couldn't get it, I would be Justus frustrated as anybody else is out there. But my commitment to the people of Ohio is we're going to continue to focus every single day on the most vulnerable people. And can that system be game once in a while? Sure. But in the vast majority of cases you're seeing Ohioans, not game. The system. You're seeing Ohioans who are following the rules because we're Ohioans, and that's pretty much what we do. So I'm confident that individuals are going to get their vaccine and we're gonna continue, do everything we can to see that they get it. Next question is from Dan Derosa, w o i O in Cleveland, Governor Good afternoon, E. I think this question is going to kind of follow along the vaccine and the frustrations we've been reached out to now by a couple of individuals who And I think this is a problem because Cuyahoga County is so large, our population is so large, Individuals who are finally getting through getting appointments. But we have one person in Kiowa County who was told their appointment is in Sandusky S O. I think we're seeing, um maybe pharmacies outside of major counties are having these vaccines available. But now we're telling some of our older population. Yeah. We need you to drive an hour and 45 minutes to hours from your home to get the vaccine. Yeah, Dan, I have no idea how that happens. That's not supposed to happen. The reason we've got 750 now and going up more than that now, uh, places where people could go is we want people to be able to go fairly close to their home And where when we can go into senior housing, we're gonna take it. We're gonna take it to them. So that should not have happened. I don't know why that happened, saying that I want to assure people I know I've read some things that people in urban area I think, Hey, the rural people are getting it. Then the people in the rural area think, Oh, you know, the urban people are getting it. We have a formula, and every week we allocate based upon population 90% of the formulas based upon population, there's a 10% figure in there that has to do with poverty and other things. But by and large, each county is getting it's vaccine that has to be administered in that county that has to be administered in that county based upon population. And we don't know any other way to Thio have that kind of equity. Now we have other equity issues we worry about. We worry about race. We worry about other things. Income, etcetera, bond. We have to try to deal with those, and we are a Sfar. US. Population is based on numbers. Next question is from just Harden at Mahoning matters dot com. The governor, um, we've talked a lot about high school sports and and guidance on on playing high school sports throughout the fall, but Of course, sports aren't the only extracurricular activities that students are engaged in a zoo. We head into the spring semester. Do you have any plans to issue guidance regarding school plays, concerts on things like that? Teoh enable them to happen and to happen safely? Yeah, I think a lot of guidance has already been issued. And we're happy to, you know, take any any specific request on help people, whether we've already got guidance or whether we're gonna put out new new guidance. Um, you know, what we do know is spread does not occur in the classroom very much. Everybody's wearing a mask. But what we do also know is that outside the classroom there, certainly there certainly can be spread. People are closer than 3 ft together. Um, you know, they're up against a locker or something for some extended period of time. More likely than that. It's occurring frankly, outside the school building where people are out, Um, doing what we all do, whether we're young people, whether we're older people and that is, you know, socialized. And that's where we're really seeing the We think the significant amount of spread we have seen spread in sports, you see, spread in wrestling you've seen that again is a fact. And we have to make people make sure they under understand that a Sfar a school plays something near and dear to my heart. Uh, we followed some or grandkids in school plays and, uh, really, really, it's been I think it's a phenomenal experience for a young person to be in theater. Uh, just a great, great thing. But again, I think schools have to look at How could we do things and how can we do it in a safe way? And, you know, theaters tougher. The theater is tougher. It's inside. You're projecting, Um, so, you know, trying to figure out how maybe that could still take place eyes up to the schools. But we can certainly give them guidance. And certainly the local health department will help give them guidance as well. Next question is from Kevin Landers WBNS in Columbus Afternoon, Governor afternoon. Is there any evidence that points to the curfew working? You've also mentioned that you're going to focus on vaccinating the most vulnerable. There are vulnerable people in Ohio who aren't hospitalized, who feel they're just as at risk. And they say it's infuriating that they're being left out. Can you address their concerns, please? Thank you. Uh, you want to explain the second group? Um, Kevin, I'm not sure I fully understood. You said people who are in the hospital. I'm sorry I missed it. I just know there are. There are people who are not hospitalized who are also vulnerable, vulnerable, health wise. And they say it's infuriating that they're being left out because they're not either. They're not hospitalized as you required under this new group. No, Kevin, that the last group is not required that they be in the hospital. It's a 200 roughly 200,000 population group. And what we have said on several of the things if they're asthma, for example, it's defined a severe asthma. I have asthma, but I've not been hospitalized for many, many years because so I would not have been included in that in that group, for example, um, we were trying to define the groups that would not be so huge, but also that it would be targeted and focused, and I know where the Bruce, if you wanna have any comment in regard to that because, you know, look, this is a a good kept good question. I think Kevin has asked. Yeah, it's a very good thank you, Governor. It's a very, very good question. And I think that the way you're answering it is right on target asses. We looked at the literature as we looked at the data. The data that is available so far that provides us with strong evidence for these conditions that would fall into this category are the ones we've listed. And for a couple of them, that literature was very clearly pointing towards a subset was pointing towards individuals who are at the severe end of the condition. So asthma being the the example that we've been using here is a really good one. And as we spoke with medical professionals around ST, there was pretty good consensus that probably one of the best measures one of the best ways of identifying those with them. That most severe end of the spectrum was those who ended up requiring hospital care because, you know, hospitals are by definition the place where we care for people who are experiencing the most severe symptoms with just about any condition. So that's the rationale. Um, the reality is that there is no system that could be developed at this time that perfectly identifies every individual. We have to use the medical literature and the the buckets of categorization that that medical literature points to. And that's what we did. Let me just state what? What? Bruce said. There's only a few of those categories that require hospitalization within the last year. Many of them are a definition. There's a name down syndrome, your down syndrome you're not. And so some of this is pretty easy to identify. And again, there's data behind all of this to show that these individuals are at a higher risk. Let me let me answer in. Lieutenant Governor wants to say something, but I want to answer the curfew question. The evidence that curfews work is very basic evidence, and that is that we know they're spread inside more than outside. We know when people do not wear a mask that there is more spread, um, so restaurants bars, by their very nature have spread. We have clear evidence of that. What a curfew simply does is it reduces the hours, reduces the hours people are there. It reduces a period of time at night when people and we don't have a curfew now. But if we did, you know and when we did, it reduces the hours of that that contact and by reducing the hours of that contact that makes a difference. That was put into a fact at roughly the same time as we started actually policing wear a mask in retail establishments, those two things put together, we saw a significant change in what was what was going on. We saw a slowdown to make slowdown of what had been going up. And we believe that has made a big, big difference. Lieutenant Governor. Yeah. Thanks, Governor. Um, look, Kevin asks, ah, challenging question. Along with what Dan had asked and what Joe had asked this. Oh, I want to revisit this. It's all about supply and demand. We have. We have two million people that have been identified by medical professionals as being high risk is people who need the vaccine first. And when you're getting 150,000 to 275,000 doses a week, whatever it fluctuates by very the very nature of the math involved means that some people are are going to be served before others, and it just takes time for us to get through this. And we've said this many times. And we really need your help reiterating that because I think that once people understand the dynamics of the math question here that they can better appreciate why we all have to be patient with one another and respectful of the prioritization list. And it's not that we're denying anybody. Uh, it's just that it's a prioritization process based on the best medical advice, and we confronted this question. We've confront this question almost on a daily basis, and, you know, I listened to Dr Vanderhof talk about this this week in our morning calls that that he really worked at talking, looking at CDC advice, talking with other medical professionals across Ohio about who should go next and why it. She should be prioritized. And that's how we ended up with this, not not something that the governor I, um, on our own look at it's what these medical professionals give us advice on how we should make these decisions. You know, it falls upon us whether we wanted it or not. It falls upon us to deal with a scarce product that saves lives. And we have relied on the best medical advice that we could get to target as precisely as possible, the most vulnerable members of our society. It makes it more difficult to do. It may even slow us up to some extent, although I think we're doing pretty well if you look at where we are. We're the seventh most populated state yet. We're seventh in getting doses out were seventh and getting first doses out were seventh and getting second doses out exactly where we should be. But we're very nuanced on trying to drive this down into the most vulnerable individuals and try to do it in a fair and equitable way, and that's that is our responsibility, and it doesn't mean we're doing it perfectly, but that's what we're doing, what we're doing, and I think that people understand we have a scarce product. We don't have enough of this point. The question really is how do we save the most lives? How do we protect the most people? It makes sense to do the most vulnerable people will see all back here on Tuesday. Thank you very much

Coronavirus latest: 939,350 cases in Ohio; 384,903 in Kentucky; 648,875 in Indiana

Updated: 2:56 PM EST Feb 14, 2021

The COVID-19 outbreak is continuing to change everyday life for millions of Americans. Leaders across the county, including the Tri-State area, are providing daily updates on confirmed cases, deaths and measures taking to curb the spread of the virus. Here, you can get the latest information on the coronavirus in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana as well as resources to be prepared and keep your family safe.LATEST CASE NUMBERS: Ohio, 939,350 cases, 16,340 deaths | Kentucky 384,903 cases, 4,211 deaths | Indiana, 648,875 cases, 11,746 deathsEducational resources: CLICK HERE to access online learning resourcesCORONAVIRUS IN OHIOOhio Gov. Mike DeWine has lifted the state's overnight curfew amid improving conditions across the state.The curfew will be officially lifted Thursday, the governor said, meaning Ohio businesses -- particularly bars and restaurants -- are permitted to resume normal hours of operation.The curfew has been in place now for 84 days, implemented by the governor on Nov. 19 in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.The initial curfew called for Ohioans to stay home and businesses across the state to close from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. daily. Those hours had been softened in recent weeks, with the governor rolling the curfew back until 11 p.m. in late January.The governor had laid out steps to eliminate Ohio's curfew altogether, saying the state needed to see less than 2,500 hospitalizations for seven consecutive days. Those numbers came to fruition earlier this week. Ohio Hospital Association data shows a seven-day decline statewide from Feb. 2 at 2,486 hospitalizations to 2,012 on Monday. In the Cincinnati region, the association shows 544 people were hospitalized on Feb. 2, but that has since dropped to 450 people, as of Monday.Christa Hyson with The Health Collaborative said the decrease is not a sign to relax."This decrease is very, very welcomed, however, our staff is still experiencing higher than normal volumes for this time of year," Hyson said.She said declining hospitalizations in Ohio translate to improvements in Greater Cincinnati."Now that we have vaccines, we are definitely seeing less staff out. We aren't seeing as many staff with COVID across the region," Hyson said.The news is also a massive relief to bar and restaurant owners across the state.At Mio's in Clifton, owner Kelli Gagen said every hour they can stay open counts. The change from 10 p.m. until 11 p.m. was monumental for business, Gagen said, adding up to about $100,000 in lost revenue.“I am just so grateful for every extra minute we get to make a little extra money and keep ourselves alive and relevant and get through this pandemic, because it’s been one rough road, but we’re positive. We’re hanging in there. We’re ready to go for it," Gagen said.CORONAVIRUS IN KENTUCKYCovington's mass vaccination site is slated to close Thursday ahead of a winter storm targeting the region.Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear made the announcement Tuesday, saying all appointments initially scheduled for Thursday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center will be rescheduled.“We don’t want people to be harmed coming to get vaccinated at certain sites," Beshear said. “Out of an abundance of caution… we have chosen to close the Kroger regional vaccination sites on Thursday in Lexington, Bowling Green and Covington.”Thursday was slated to be the first day for Northern Kentucky's only mass vaccination center.Kroger will operate the site with logistics help from the National Guard.The site will now open Friday and Saturday, and continue the following weeks from Thursday through Saturday. The plan is to ramp up the operation in coming weeks.You must have an appointment to get a shot and be signed up a week in advance. To make a reservation through Kroger, click here or call 866-211-5320.The biggest winter snowstorm in years battered Cincinnati Monday night into Tuesday morning, dropping at least 5 inches of snow for most areas, with some seeing more than 10 inches.More ice and snow is expected Wednesday night into Thursday.Another round of snow will move in from the south beginning Wednesday afternoon. Expect this system to move in between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Wednesday.Heavier snow bands will focus on the area’s southernmost communities. That system will linger overnight and into Thursday morning, bringing another 1 to 3 inches of snow to the area by Thursday morning. The potential for more than 2 inches of snow exists mainly along or south of the Ohio River.CORONAVIRUS IN INDIANAThe Indiana Department of Health announced Sunday that 1,233 additional Hoosiers have been diagnosed with COVID-19 through testing at state and private laboratories. That brings to 648,875 the number of Indiana residents now known to have had the novel coronavirus following corrections to the previous day’s dashboard.A total of 11,746 Hoosiers are confirmed to have died from COVID-19, an increase of 24 from the previous day. Another 427 probable deaths have been reported based on clinical diagnoses in patients for whom no positive test is on record. To date, 3,049,828 unique individuals have been tested in Indiana, up from 3,043,854 on Saturday. A total of 7,557,530 tests, including repeat tests for unique individuals, have been reported to the state Department of Health since Feb. 26, 2020.Symptoms:According to the CDC, the following symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure: Fever, cough and shortness of breath.Emergency warning signs include:Difficulty breathing or shortness of breathPersistent pain or pressure in the chestNew confusion or inability to arouseBluish lips or face*This list is not all inclusive. Please consult your medical provider for any other symptoms that are severe or concerning.This chart from Prospect Pediatrics compares COVID-19 symptoms to the cold and flu:Resources: - Ohio coronavirus hotline: 833-427-5634- Kentucky coronavirus hotline: (800) 722-5725- Indiana general questions can be directed to the ISDH Epidemiology Resource Center at 317-233-7125 (317-233-1325 after hours) or e-mail [email protected] for Disease Control and Prevention websiteWhat to do if you think you have it:Officials have urged people to be conscious not to overwhelm the health care system. This graphic will help you decide when it is time to see a physician. Helpful tips and guides: → Here's what you should do if you already have the coronavirus → Dealing with stress, anxiety during coronavirus outbreak→ These viral social media coronavirus posts are FALSE→ How long should you wash your hands to avoid the coronavirus?→ Guidance for self isolation and home quarantine→ How to clean your car for coronavirus→ A guide to keeping your child safe and reassured as coronavirus spreads→ This map tracks the coronavirus in real time→ How to work from home without losing your sanity

CINCINNATI —

The COVID-19 outbreak is continuing to change everyday life for millions of Americans. Leaders across the county, including the Tri-State area, are providing daily updates on confirmed cases, deaths and measures taking to curb the spread of the virus.

Here, you can get the latest information on the coronavirus in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana as well as resources to be prepared and keep your family safe.

LATEST CASE NUMBERS: Ohio, 939,350 cases, 16,340 deaths | Kentucky 384,903 cases, 4,211 deaths | Indiana, 648,875 cases, 11,746 deaths

Educational resources: CLICK HERE to access online learning resources

CORONAVIRUS IN OHIO

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has lifted the state's overnight curfew amid improving conditions across the state.

The curfew will be officially lifted Thursday, the governor said, meaning Ohio businesses -- particularly bars and restaurants -- are permitted to resume normal hours of operation.

The curfew has been in place now for 84 days, implemented by the governor on Nov. 19 in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.

The initial curfew called for Ohioans to stay home and businesses across the state to close from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. daily. Those hours had been softened in recent weeks, with the governor rolling the curfew back until 11 p.m. in late January.

The governor had laid out steps to eliminate Ohio's curfew altogether, saying the state needed to see less than 2,500 hospitalizations for seven consecutive days. Those numbers came to fruition earlier this week.

Ohio Hospital Association data shows a seven-day decline statewide from Feb. 2 at 2,486 hospitalizations to 2,012 on Monday. In the Cincinnati region, the association shows 544 people were hospitalized on Feb. 2, but that has since dropped to 450 people, as of Monday.

Christa Hyson with The Health Collaborative said the decrease is not a sign to relax.

"This decrease is very, very welcomed, however, our staff is still experiencing higher than normal volumes for this time of year," Hyson said.

She said declining hospitalizations in Ohio translate to improvements in Greater Cincinnati.

"Now that we have vaccines, we are definitely seeing less staff out. We aren't seeing as many staff with COVID across the region," Hyson said.

The news is also a massive relief to bar and restaurant owners across the state.

At Mio's in Clifton, owner Kelli Gagen said every hour they can stay open counts. The change from 10 p.m. until 11 p.m. was monumental for business, Gagen said, adding up to about $100,000 in lost revenue.

“I am just so grateful for every extra minute we get to make a little extra money and keep ourselves alive and relevant and get through this pandemic, because it’s been one rough road, but we’re positive. We’re hanging in there. We’re ready to go for it," Gagen said.

CORONAVIRUS IN KENTUCKY

Covington's mass vaccination site is slated to close Thursday ahead of a winter storm targeting the region.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear made the announcement Tuesday, saying all appointments initially scheduled for Thursday at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center will be rescheduled.

“We don’t want people to be harmed coming to get vaccinated at certain sites," Beshear said. “Out of an abundance of caution… we have chosen to close the Kroger regional vaccination sites on Thursday in Lexington, Bowling Green and Covington.”

Thursday was slated to be the first day for Northern Kentucky's only mass vaccination center.

Kroger will operate the site with logistics help from the National Guard.

The site will now open Friday and Saturday, and continue the following weeks from Thursday through Saturday. The plan is to ramp up the operation in coming weeks.

You must have an appointment to get a shot and be signed up a week in advance. To make a reservation through Kroger, click here or call 866-211-5320.

The biggest winter snowstorm in years battered Cincinnati Monday night into Tuesday morning, dropping at least 5 inches of snow for most areas, with some seeing more than 10 inches.

More ice and snow is expected Wednesday night into Thursday.

Another round of snow will move in from the south beginning Wednesday afternoon. Expect this system to move in between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Heavier snow bands will focus on the area’s southernmost communities. That system will linger overnight and into Thursday morning, bringing another 1 to 3 inches of snow to the area by Thursday morning. The potential for more than 2 inches of snow exists mainly along or south of the Ohio River.

CORONAVIRUS IN INDIANA

The Indiana Department of Health announced Sunday that 1,233 additional Hoosiers have been diagnosed with COVID-19 through testing at state and private laboratories. That brings to 648,875 the number of Indiana residents now known to have had the novel coronavirus following corrections to the previous day’s dashboard.

A total of 11,746 Hoosiers are confirmed to have died from COVID-19, an increase of 24 from the previous day. Another 427 probable deaths have been reported based on clinical diagnoses in patients for whom no positive test is on record.

To date, 3,049,828 unique individuals have been tested in Indiana, up from 3,043,854 on Saturday. A total of 7,557,530 tests, including repeat tests for unique individuals, have been reported to the state Department of Health since Feb. 26, 2020.

Symptoms:

According to the CDC, the following symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure: Fever, cough and shortness of breath.

Emergency warning signs include:

• Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
• Persistent pain or pressure in the chest
• New confusion or inability to arouse
• Bluish lips or face

*This list is not all inclusive. Please consult your medical provider for any other symptoms that are severe or concerning.

This chart from Prospect Pediatrics compares COVID-19 symptoms to the cold and flu:

Resources:

- Ohio coronavirus hotline: 833-427-5634

- Kentucky coronavirus hotline: (800) 722-5725

- Indiana general questions can be directed to the ISDH Epidemiology Resource Center at 317-233-7125 (317-233-1325 after hours) or e-mail [email protected].

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website

What to do if you think you have it:

Officials have urged people to be conscious not to overwhelm the health care system. This graphic will help you decide when it is time to see a physician.

Helpful tips and guides:

→ Here's what you should do if you already have the coronavirus

→ Dealing with stress, anxiety during coronavirus outbreak

→ These viral social media coronavirus posts are FALSE

→ How long should you wash your hands to avoid the coronavirus?

→ Guidance for self isolation and home quarantine

→ How to clean your car for coronavirus

→ A guide to keeping your child safe and reassured as coronavirus spreads

→ This map tracks the coronavirus in real time

→ How to work from home without losing your sanity