Gov. Mike DeWine outlines Ohio's coronavirus plan - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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Good afternoon.
I'm Dr Akram Boutros President to see off the Metro health system.
And it is my pleasure to welcome you here today.
Thank you for coming.
Uh, this snowy day today you will hear how mental health and the state of Ohio are preparing for potential outbreak of covert 19 or Corona virus.
I'm joined here by Governor Mike Blind, director of a higher depart of mental health Doctor Amy Act him Guy Hobie County Health Commissioner Mr Terry Allen and MetroHealth Keith Quality Officer Dr Brooke Watts.
For more than 183 years, Metro Health has been managing health crises that spread fear and alarm throughout a region.
It all began with Cleveland Cholera outbreak in 18 37.
This was filed by a TB crisis in the 19 hundreds and later the polio epidemic of the 19 fifties.
In the 19 eighties, we spearheaded efforts to address the spread and treatment of HIV and AIDS.
When contracting the disease was a death sentence on one Ebola hit our shores five years ago would quickly volunteered to become the state's Onley designated Ebola center treatment center.
Today, their center includes a special disease unit that focuses on emerging disease threats.
We stand ready to treat covert 19.
Should cases appear here, The governor and Dr Actin have met with our team on visited our special disease unit.
We've discussed our preparation for covert 19.
We are honored to have governor wine.
Here he was.
He has been a friend and ally when he was in the United States Senate and a strong partner on the opioid epidemic Has Ohio Attorney General It is reassuring to all of us that this governor understand the health needs of the high ones and that strong safety net institutions like mental health are critical to our higher on the United States.
We are the first line of defense against emerging disease threats.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to introduce covering our wine.
Dr.
Boudreau's thank you very very much for having us here today.
We just finished a tour of emerging diseases unit to learn more about there.
Preparations that are occurring for infectious diseases such as the flu and the corona virus.
What they do here at Metro Health it's certainly very impressive.
And Ohio is in Fort Fortunate to have doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and others committed to protecting our health and well being from the spread of diseases.
We're very, very fortunate to have that.
So, Doctor, thank you very, very much.
After I was elected governor of this state a little over a year ago, I asked Dr Amy acted to head our Department of Health.
Since the beginning of the news about the Corona virus six weeks ago, Dr Actin and her team at the State Department of Health have been engaged with our local and with our federal partners preparing for whatever might come next.
Dr Actin updates me at least once, sometimes many times every single day.
She briefed our Cabinet this morning again, and she has just returned last night after spending the last several days in Washington, D.
C.
Where she has been working with her counterparts across the country as well as officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC and the U.
S.
Department of Health and Human Service is and the White House.
The threat of the Corona virus in the United States and in Ohio remains low, and currently in Ohio we have no confirmed cases.
We have no confirmed cases nor any persons under investigation.
We have had seven people tested for the virus in Ohio and all of these individuals have tested negative.
But we know that this could change.
And so we have to be prepared.
In all Ohioans, all Ohioans must have a sense of urgency about this emerging health threat.
And that's what I want to talk about Today is imperative that we be open with the public and that we communicate information in real time about the Corona virus to both inform and educate the people of the state of Ohio.
My commitment is that we will communicate what we know when we know it.
That is our obligation.
And that is what we intend to do.
Certainly today no one knows all the answers.
No one does.
Dr.
Actin will share today with you what we do know so far.
But we certainly cannot predict the future.
And this disease continues to evolve, making all the more important this things change.
We continue to work with our local partners to communicate information to the public in Ohio.
Our Department of Health are State Department of Health works directly with 100 and 13 separate county and city health departments around the state.
We work very closely and collaboratively with these local departments.
They're truly the first line of defense in every one of our communities.
The state Department of Health works with our local partners to provide guidance to them to provide support to them, to give them information and to help help them implement their various programs.
Also, our state health department works closely with our federal partners, CC and HHS, who offered technical expertise and funding for many of our programs.
It is important to understand the role of the Ohio Department of Health, and our local departments have helped play in protecting our health here in the state of Ohio.
The truth is that much of what they do average citizen never hears about doesn't think about, because what they do is focus on prevention.
What they do is focus on planning for an emergency.
We have people in Ohio working hard every single day to make sure, for example, that our food is safety.
Our water is drinkable, our swimming pools or clean and our nursing homes are following safety guidelines to protect their residents.
That work goes on every single day out of sight.
Many times, their mission is really to diagnose and identify health hazards in our communities.
And they were quickly, many times quietly mostly behind the scenes to solve and help prevent health problems.
Our state Department of Health and our local health departments across the state have teams of doctors and epidemiologists and emergency preparedness experts whose job it is to plan for outbreaks.
This preparation is candidly part of their standard operating procedure.
In a moment, Dr Action will talk specifically about what Ohio has been doing for the last six weeks in preparation for a possible Corona virus outbreak.
And what will happen if somewhere in Ohio does in the future, test positive for the virus.
As we continue this work, I have tasked my Cabinet directors with implementing preventive steps to help minimize the threat and the spread of spread of not only the Corona virus but also the flu, because the fact remains little high ones today or in a much higher risk because of getting the flu.
Then from getting the Corona virus.
Last year in this country, there were over 34,000 deaths caused by the flu, the CDC estimates that there have been at least 16,000 flu deaths in the United States so far just this season, and that figure might be as high as 41,000.
Flew remains a major killer in this country.
While we do not have data about how many adults have died in Ohio from the flu, we do know don't do know that there have been nearly 1200 flu related hospitalizations as of February 15th.
And tragically, two Children, both young girls here in northeast Ohio, have died from the flu this season.
Your 16 year old and car hire county 11 year old in Lake County, they said.
The adult numbers in Ohio we do not have.
And so, as we outlined the steps Ohioans can take to protect themselves from a possible Corona virus outbreak, is equally important to take these very Sam steps.
Same steps to prevent the spread of the flu that we know is already here today.
I have asked my cabinet directors to implement several very important steps in their agencies to help mitigate the risk of both the flu and possible Corona virus in Ohio.
As a state, I believe it is important that we lead by example.
And so what I'm ordering today, I hope, does that as far as the state is concerned, we run institutions buildings to veterans home, six state hospitals, nine lodges at our state parks.
We have 28 state prisons in Ohio, so we have an obligation to ramp up toe, ramp up what we're doing and tow, have that sense of urgency ourselves about what I'm asking all Highlands toe have, and that is that sense of urgency and preparing for what may be coming.
So here are some of things that I'm ordering today, and I strongly encourage everyone else across the state of Ohio who runs businesses, runs, hospitals, nursing home schools and other facilities that if you haven't done these things already to examine your existing disease prevention plans and consider additional measures, now is the time to review what you're doing.
Once again, now is a time for a sense of urgency.
I am today directing the Ohio Department transportation to post information from our Department of Health in all state rest areas, on hand washing protocols and to include messages on Ohio travel TV.
I'm asking our department of rehabilitation and corrections and the department you service is to increase the frequency of frequency of and be very aggressive in the use of disinfectant measures in all their state facilities to protect the inmates, the families and the staff I'm calling on.
Our colleges and universities are college and university leaders to urge every student, every faculty member, every employee, that if they have not yet received a flu shot to do this immediately, go to the campus health clinic and get these shots today.
Further, I'm asking our college and university leaders to prohibit college related travel to nations where the CDC has recommended no travel such as China and South Korea and for all Ohioans for all of Highlands, please consider your foreign travel.
Anyone thinking about foreign travel should monitor the CD Seas Travel Advisory website for updates.
This is updated every single day, and as this virus continues and what we know about continues to emerge, this information we can bet will continue to change.
Monitor the CDC Web Web page.
It's very important to do that I also masking our colleges and universities to take appropriate action to accommodate students, were studying abroad and may need to come back to the United States in mid semester or in mid quarter.
Help them make that transition.
I'm asking the Ohio Department aging to continue to work with local aging networks to identify the most vulnerable older adults in our communities, those people who have the highest needs.
We must make sure that we have plans in place, so if their needs are met where that is, providing additional meals or access to additional medication or other personal care needs.
Also, I'm telling our local aging advocates across Ohio to go out into their communities to check on nursing care facilities to ensure that all illness prevention methods are in place again, I'm asking, Are nursing homes to have this sense of urgency?
We will also be paying aggressive attention to common areas in state owned and leased buildings, including significantly increased cleaning frequency of these areas, use of hand sanitizer stations in common lobbies and hallways.
Further, I'm announcing that on Thursday of next week we'll be convening a summit in Columbus for local public Health department partners and for the health commissioners and for their staffs.
I will also be asked me, my cabinet directors from our state agencies to be there for that as well.
Though we continue to communicate with these health departments on a daily basis by phone and e mail, we feel that's been pouring to bring everyone together in person to share information, review processes, procedures, consider possible scenarios and course of action what we would do under different scenarios and discuss additional steps to help reduce the spread of disease.
That meeting will focus on those things and more.
Let me conclude by urging all high ones to listen.
Listen, the public health and medical experts they trained for this.
You're prepared for this.
This is what they do every single day.
We need to heed what they tell us.
We need all the high ones to help.
And I know a doctor.
Dr.
Actin is gonna talk about many things that average Ohioans, all of us in our daily lives cancan do.
But again, the basics wash your hands, avoid close contact with someone who was sick and stay home.
Stay home when you were sick, something that some of us find hard to do.
I think I ridge Ohio employers in school to be flexible if people are sick and encourage people to stay home who work for you.
These are simple and effective ways that all of high ones could help.
Let me now, at this point, turn it over to Dr Amy Actin, Who is I said has really been immersed in this for last six weeks and someone who brings in her training and background Ah, great great background to lead our efforts in regard to the Corona virus, but also what we do every single day and our departments do every single day in regard to public health.
Amy.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Uh, good afternoon, everyone.
You see me?
A little sleep deprived.
As governor said I just got back from D.
C.
Where I spent a couple days really at at the White House, talking to leaders.
They're working with the leadership of the CDC and, most importantly, talking to other states.
It's wonderful to be here at a place that is this hospital is so amazing in their work on infectious disease.
So at the end, I hope reporters will also take time to learn more about what they do here.
Um, but I want you to know that our state stands ready.
I know I say that, and I know at a time when there's a lot of information flowing and seemingly changing information, it makes it harder for people, everyday people just to feel secure and what's happening.
But this is something we really are prepared for infectious diseases or something we know.
And even when there's a new infectious disease, they are predictably unpredictable.
In other words, pandemics and spread of infectious disease happens in a phased way, and it happens in patterns.
And so we really while we might not know exactly where it might spread first or where the one case in Ohio might occur, we really know what to do about it when it happens.
So I want a little highlands know that this system is working, and in fact, in looking around our country, I felt that we are very prepared.
We've taken a very conservative sort of aggressive approach, as is my nature, and, um, and we'll tell you more about that, especially in the question.
Answer.
I want to answer a lot of details, but I want to think about what this feels like for people at home who might see this or hear about what you write again.
Corona virus looks very much like the flu.
What we now know and we learn more hour by hour is that it's very contagious.
It's particularly catchy.
Um, you know, in terms of its morbidity and disease state, it's It's a little more dangerous than the flu, but it's not as dangerous as things we've seen in the past like you have dealt with here.
Like Ebola or stars or MERS.
It acts like a flu, a cold.
You have the symptoms of coughing, fever, body aches.
In fact, there are many people who probably get it who will never know.
They got it, just like many people get the flu and never know they have it.
But for people who are more vulnerable that elderly, aging people hurt, immuno compromised, they're more susceptible, just like they are to the flu.
So those air the groups, you know, we worry about most, um, what's different about Krone viruses?
We don't have a vaccine yet, and it will take at least a year to a year and 1/2 for us to have a vaccine on, and it's it's an amazing pace they're doing and doing that.
But everything we do in public health is to slow down the spread of this disease while we get to that place where we have a dizzy A vaccine.
So the other thing is that, um, you know, Corona virus does spread when people are asymptomatic that we have learned recently.
So people can be catchy.
And when we talk about these things, you need to do they sound so low tech.
But they make a huge, huge difference and spreading it amongst people.
So in Ohio, we currently remained very low risk.
But as you see around the world, that can change.
And we will definitely keep you informed.
Everything that happens, we will keep you informed.
There are no cases.
There's no community spread up to the case we've heard about in California.
That's the first person that they think maybe community spread.
And what that means is that they don't know for sure where they got it from.
Did they get it from a traveler?
Did they get it from someone who had a case?
Up to this point, we've been able to say exactly where everyone caught it.
Eventually it will be impossible to keep up with that.
And that's when we start to see communities.
Fred, go um, of the people who traveled.
You've also heard our numbers on traveler.
We have received at least about two a little over 202 12 with the last number I saw of people who have returned through the airports.
11 airports again.
These folks are not sick.
They don't have the disease.
But we took a sort of aggressive stance in Ohio and we asked that they would voluntarily self quarantine, meaning stay home, watch a lot of Netflix and work with these amazing disease detectives.
What Terry is going to tell you about here at the local level, who monitor them every day, they monitor their temperature.
They make sure their food to eat.
But we just ask that people stay home so that they don't spread it.
But there they don't have the disease, and most of them have already graduated out, not ever getting it.
Every day we get a few more here the state we get those details from the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, and then we share them with local counties.
About 33 counties have had a traveler that we know of sometimes one sometimes, too.
But that number will grow if we see more more guidance about travelers from other countries.
Um, so that system is working.
It's working very well.
But if we had a case, we would come to you right away.
So what would a case look like again?
Most of the cases in this country are at home.
They're being monitored at home.
Very similarly is to the people.
We suspect they're not sick enough to be actually in a hospital right now.
There is one person hospitalized.
Um, we know that most people will have be miserable and take comfort measures like we do with the flu.
But eventually it will pass.
When it gets worse.
They have respiratory distress, most often, sometimes in other countries.
They've been put on a ventilator, and that's where you see people having more severe symptoms.
But right now, the disease is really looking a lot like the flu.
Or you get that spectrum of people, mostly people who do well but some people who might not.
So that's my best way of explaining to you what it will look like when we see a case importantly, we we surround that case and away we take histories on folks that you wish your doctor still took on you.
We ask you everything you have done what you eat and drink where you have travelled.
If you sat on an airplane, what seat you sat on?
We know everyone you have come into contact with, um and then we go to those people you have come into contact with, and we talked to them.
And some of those folks, like your family members, might be asked to self quarantine and stay home as well.
And we take those rings of knowledge out.
Someday there might be a case who went to the movies, in which case we would publicly say that we would say they were at the movies and thought, you know, Spiderman number whatever.
And they were in this theater.
And then people who are worried about that would have that knowledge so that they could go to their health care provider.
The important thing about all of this is we will learn more hour by hour and the best.
It's most important that you get your information from a good resource.
So we have created in addition to our usual website, we've made a more public facing version of it called Corona Virus.
Got Ohio dot gov And we're gonna be putting on that lots of tips for just all citizens already on our website at od h dot Ohio dot gov.
We have tons of guidance for hospitals, businesses, schools, universities, kindergartens, daycares.
And every time we get more guidance or learn more, have better tips.
We put it on there.
So I think it's very important in Ohio that we all go to the same information and all work from the same playbook.
Um, what are some of these things you can do if you have a little prepper side and you are, just do what a lot of us do.
I grew up in northeast Ohio, and I kept in my car, my blanket and my flashlight and my kit of things.
What would your kid look like for Corona virus?
So So what you would think about is, what would it be like if you got sick and you didn't want to go to CVS because you don't want to expose other people so you want it now?
You know, just make sure you have your basic cold symptom kind of flu.
Aspirin and Nike will if that your comfort measure of choice, whatever that is, you wanna have those medicines?
But more importantly, you might wanna have whatever your regular medicines are a 14 day at least supply at home.
You'd wanna have some food.
You might want to think about your pets and make sure you've stocked up on pet food in case you're all of a sudden getting the vacation quarantine experience.
Um, and you might also want to think about your kids.
You know, a lot of us have kids, and your kid might get sick and be sent home from school.
So you want to be thinking about what your plans will be In that case, Also, think about your parents or your grand parents.
Well, they need extra help in what you might D'oh.
So if you're hearing what I'm saying, I'm saying that you would do a lot of the things you would do worrying about your loved ones, getting the flu and having backup plans.
Um, again, information is just so, so important.
You will work with your provider.
You will work with someone from the local health department who will be giving you guidance and calling it on checking on you so you won't be alone.
That's the other thing.
You will have more help than you've ever had when you got sick.
If you get Corona virus, um, eventually, you know, what else will we see here in Ohio?
You know, I prepare for the worst, so I'm going to share a little of my like what I think about and what I see coming what my colleagues were really planning for around the country, you know, we will see shortages of some of the preparedness, the p p e what we use.
The masks and 95 mask the gowns, their worries about that already we have a stockpile in Ohio, but the CDC is also working on creating a whole new, larger stash.
You know, obviously, some of these products are made in China, and as we know, they're not being made if people aren't at work.
So all those things are being trouble shot and problem solved at the national level.
Um, we really want people to get the flu shot because again, you still are much more likely to be sick from that.
But it will also confuse the picture of figuring out of U of Corona virus.
So it really helps that you won't be going to the hospital with the flu if we're really trying to gear up our hospitals for a spread of this disease.
So that's another thing that health care professionals are thinking a lot about.
Another thing I want all Ohioans to think about is the stigma that has become associated with this disease.
There's so much fear.
This disease is on virus.
It doesn't discriminate.
It started in China.
But viruses don't care who you are there.
They're going to spread amongst all of us.
And so it's really important that, you know people are sick.
And for those of us who aren't sick, we can hope, Um, our faith based institutions can help.
If someone's home sick and they don't want to leave, take food and drop it off at their door for them.
Those are things we can do right now early on.
But this is something we should all do together.
If we're businesses, we're gonna have to be flexible as the governor said, We're making plans because we run businesses, big state agencies.
I have 1100 employees.
I'm thinking about what will happen when they get sick and so making sure that you have those workplace redundancy plans in place, which again many of us already have.
But we also won't be flexible.
A telecommuting.
Another option that we're doing a lot with now is telemedicine.
I mean, the fact that you could talk to a doctor and many of us have that in our health plans without ever having to leave our houses.
Um, I want you to know that we will be working on this 24 7 as we have been since it started.
We will give you good information when I say this is the flu, and washing your hands is what I'm saying.
I'm not saying Don't think it's important.
I'm trying to really tell you what it is like that washing the hands that I always say.
Studies from each one and one showed that when they implemented twice a day 22nd hand washing in schools and wiping down surfaces.
Because this virus is easily killed by just routine cleaning products, there were 50% less cases transmitted.
It was that Les Les Transmission.
So it actually is something that works.
What we're trying to do is just not get each other sick.
Our citizens have been great.
The people of quarantine have willingly done so and and, um, that's what we'll need.
Thio.
We do do things if we need to quarantine places, and if we ever did need to give orders about a school closing our public place, we would do it and you would see all that coming gradually.
But most people do the right thing and stay home when they're sick.
So that's the picture of Corona virus right now, and we'll keep you very up to date, and I'll now turn it over to my colleague, who's one of the most amazing if you don't know it in Northeast Ohio, Terry Allen is just He's a rock star around the country.
As a health commissioner, I'd like for him to share with you what it really looks like, cause most of the work in public help happens at the local level.
Thank you, I have to tell you.
First of all, that's the first time ever been called the rock star.
I have twin boys, and they would It would be a manly disagree there.
18 years old, Thank you.
Uh, probably the last.
Thank you very much.
First, I want to say, Governor Dwyane, thank you for being the consummate public health governor.
You've supported protecting your kids from tobacco products.
You're supporting our work around lead poisoning prevention.
You're here today and supporting the work of public health.
And that means a lot.
It's very gratifying to us in my compatriots around the state of Ohio.
So the one thing I will tell you is that state local health departments are peas and carrots, along with CDC.
We're like the public health Safety forces were like a utility were like water.
We're like electricity.
We're here to assist behind the scenes, risking a football metaphor.
Here in Cleveland, we're like a good defensive back.
If we do our job, our name never gets called over the p A system.
So that's what you need to know about public health.
For Dr Actin, she's been a incredibly fantastically or over brimming with sincerity and her support for local public health, her rallying, the public health system statewide has been exemplary.
And I'm personally very grateful that she's the state health director and that Governor Dwyane has chosen her for that position.
So what are we doing in local public health?
I'm gonna talk about four things that we do.
We identify, we diagnose, we isolate, and we contact Trace.
So I'm gonna talk about those four things.
You're hearing a treatment facility, and Dr Boutros can explain wth e great work that goes on here in the fantastic people that work here at Metro and in Cleveland.
We're very fortunate to have a very strong medical system.
So let's talk about identified.
So Dr Act and describe the fact that we have travelers that are returning from different places.
We know who those folks are working with Our state health department, CDC They're cooling their jets for a couple weeks as they wait through their quarantine period or their isolation period.
We watch for symptoms if need be.
If it occurs, there would be a need to then move from that identification process to diagnosis.
So they're being watched.
We're checking their temperature.
We're looking for symptoms and we're staying in touch.
This is happening across the country is helping in Ohio.
It's happening here now.
The diagnosis would mean that if we had a person in particular that started to exhibit symptoms and based on the case characteristics, that person would need to be tested.
Who would coordinate with the state health Department in CDC and with our hospital systems around the testing?
And then those tests would be sent to the state Health Department and on for confirmation as needed.
We also know that if we have people of particular concern, we can isolate those folks or quarantine people that air that are specifically at risk can either be isolated quarantine in different three different methods.
But that's happening out.
We have a trailer that sick.
They're at home.
They're not walking around community, exposing people, so that process is taking place.
It's important to note that we've been doing this a while.
I've been in public health for 30 years, and I was active around the post 9 11 response for anthrax smallpox.
We certainly then had H one n one response in 9 4010 We had the blackout in early 2000 and how we dealt with that around a public health emergency.
We remember that and Ebola in 2014.
So there's a lot of experience with understanding the shoe leather, public health work.
This is what we do.
It's in our DNA.
The last pieces contact race.
If we identify someone that's ill and Dr Act and spoke to this, we're going to identify someone that's ill and then find out who they've been in contact with.
This is what we do for things like measles.
This is very much part of what public health and medicine does.
We look for people that are that are ill and find out who they have been in contact with and make decisions about whether those folks need to be isolated or tested.
This case may be so.
What we're doing now is we are hoping for the very best, but planning in the event that it gets more severe.
That's what we need to do because we don't know where this will go here locally.
It's important along with six weeks you heard from the state Health department, it's important to know that we've been working very closely with our partners here.
We've been working with our hospital systems were working with AMs working with fire we're working with Police were working with our school systems businesses and our county emergency management Agency.
If there was a need to escalate, we're already in the process of gearing up that system, and it can be teared based on the need to expand based on the circumstances.
We are a missed the flu season, as Dr Acting described, and certainly Governor Wine described as well.
And what we know here is just in the last three weeks.
10.
Excuse me now the numbers.
10 people in last three weeks have died from the flu.
We've had 1500 emergency room admissions, 500 hospitalizations in three weeks.
So flu is alive and well here in these symptoms are similar, so we need to bear that in mind.
Get your flu shot.
Talk to your doctor if you have the flu about anti virals, and Dr Ray can talk about that in great detail later.
So we don't want people to be scared.
We want people to be ready.
We want people to read the information and understand issues around social distancing and staying home when you're sick and there's a range of interventions that could be escalated based on the scope and magnitude and tiered based on the scope and magnitude of an outbreak.
The last thing I will say is on a personal note.
I've been in this this unit in three years, and the last time I was here I have a brother who's a fireman, and, uh, he fell 25 feet and he was in the I C.
U.
For multiple weeks and he had multiple cranial fractures, and he's back at work because of this facility.
So thank you.
Before we get to questions, I would like Thio Pass Dr Act Into and a couple things doctor after you give the Web page again for anybody who wants toe look up in Ohio about, and we continue to be informed every single day about Corona.
And then if you could also amplify a little bit in regard to the mask you're talking, thank you.
So, um, Corona virus.
The disease is now being called Cove it 19 and then there's actually another name for the virus.
But most people are still knowing it as Corona virus, so the website is Corona virus dot Ohio dot gov Corona virus Dato.
How'd it go?
Um, it is such an honor to work with a governor who care so passionately, like he he goes into the details of this and he just said you haven't told them about the mask, so Ah, lot of people.
D'oh!
So the masks, you know, most masks that people wear the surgical masks.
They can keep you from coughing.
This is spread by respiratory droplets.
So it keeps that from going out.
It actually of many masks are not small enough and poor to actually keep viruses from coming in.
So it's more to keep you from going to other people.
Now, there's a special mass called and 95 that's what we use medically.
And that means it keeps out 95% of viral pathogens, and those are the ones that are crucial.
Oh, yeah.
And okay, so you're seeing.
I mean, they even have emoticons now, right?
The smiley face has a mask.
Have you seen that one?
This is the mask that it is wearing.
And, um and so you know, and in many parts of the world, cause I'm a global health doctor, people wear these out of politeness.
It's not seeing plate to be coughing around, you know, we all cough on each other, But in other countries, people are very careful about spreading disease.
And so they're using that.
You've seen paint masks from the hardware store.
Those definitely aren't helping.
The N 95 is a very has actually fitted.
It's a very exact fitting thing, and if the fit is not right, it also is no longer good.
These are essential for health care providers.
Tohave, sometimes mass have been given to family members of a case in some of these first cases because they're trying to keep they live at home, and they're trying to keep a family member from getting it.
But these will be the ones that we see a shortage of, and it's really vitally important than that we keep them for for the medical professionals and the real patients who need them.
And in addition, we are actually working with hospitals on the CC is working with all hospitals around the country on how to best conservative.
So it's actually a science toe how we use these and that's why you hear a lot about the masks again for most of us, you know, it is a hand washing and the coughing into your sleeve and not spreading things in staying home and not spreading it to other people.
So I hope I did just deceased.
Yeah, and one other thing the governor have talked a lot about testing is a big issue with this, of course.
So, you know, we have a state laboratory, and eventually we will.
Hopefully I've have rumors of the next about week or so have the test in Ohio so that our what happens is when we do get a specimen from the hospital or from a local health department, it comes to my lab and we ship it to CDC.
And the turnaround time right now is about 3 to 5 days, and they prioritize those on the riskier cases.
Um, and the CDC is actually opened up a second lab, so they're running those pretty quickly on.
The CDC did try to get these already out to the States, but it's a PCR test, and one of the re agents didn't work right, so they had to go back to the vendor who made them and have those redone.
And so that's That's the delay that will be obviously nicer, because we'll be able to know quicker the answers.
But we still know them fairly quickly.
And today R seven people have tested negative.
So I think with that you begin to open up the question.
Be happy to answer any questions.
So there was a lot of use The Lord inevitable yesterday, and the fact is, all long when you look at at a pandemic curve and then the spread of viruses, it's very, very hard to actually contain them and keep them from spreading.
And we've done really a heroic job of doing that.
But the goal all along has been to slow down the spread, you know, with amount of travel we have.
And with infectivity of this disease, it has been suspected all along that it eventually could spread.
You never know for sure, but I think we now are seeing that it is in so many countries, and eventually that will spread.
Here in the United States.
We will see cases that we've always assumed we would, um but we've done an amazing job, I have to say, compared each each infectious disease it gets a little better.
And we've done a very good job, you know, most likely.
Eventually, we will.
But when we don't know, well, I wouldn't want I wouldn't want to speculate that so far down the path, you know, Look, we're gonna listen to what the experts tell us.
So this is going to be something that you need any decision about any kind of order coming from the governor?
It's gonna be in consultation with the experts on certainly starting with with Dr Acting Doctor.
Can you wanna make a comment on that?
I think when we think about quarantine, there's a whole range of options.
And so I you know, if you want to try to make you imagine this, you know most like that first case is in a community.
So say it is in Cleveland and maybe the case had a family member that then gets Ella's.
Whalen is at school.
That school is prepared.
They have infectious diseases all the time.
They have plans.
And we've had several schools close in Ohio just because so many people caught it and the faculty started getting sick and they're not enough substitutes, and eventually they close the school.
So there's a range of things like an individual school could close because it really stays contained to that one school or that one community.
What you're speaking of is, if we saw multiple cases and widespread in the state all at one time, then we have other decisions we would make about.
You know, it might be best if what you see in Japan right now that all schools closed for a while because they really it's everywhere.
They can't say it's one place, so there's a range of options and we'll deploy them.
But But we're not.
Look, we're not gonna We're not gonna go too far down the past speculating, because again, the fact you're going to control what decisions are made, these decisions that are gonna be made based on the facts that we see every single day and so I can assure you, and the people of State of Ohio, the doctor actin and I and her team are in contact every single day.
Justus important, she's in contact with local authorities and collaboratively, they're gonna review the situation every day.
So I think it's pretty.
It would be very misleading to the public for us to sit up here or stand up here and come up with every conceivable scenario of what we would do under those circumstances.
I think we have to let the facts, the facts, play out.
You know, I think we're always afraid of what we don't know.
In a lot of what the governor has been doing over the past month is here we have this virus that, you know, the flu that we know killed 35,000 people in the United States, 61,000 the year before.
And, you know, were you we sort of are complacent to that, to the point where we don't think about it.
But Corona virus is new, Andi, and it's tricky because we learn something new every hour, so that leads to sort of a feeling like this must be something we can't anticipate.
And and I think that's why so I'm not saying that people shouldn't be concerned, but I want them tow have some sort of context for that concern, And many ti re emphasized many of the things that we're recommending.
The doctors, recommending health authorities are recommending, is also good for the flu on the flu we know is here, and we know the flu is a killer.
So doing these things is the prudent thing to do.
It's not an alarmist thing to do.
It's not, you know, thinking anything other than less minimize the risk for every Ohio.
Let's save lives.
And by doing these things collectively, we will clearly save lives to support Dr Atkins comments on the governor's comments.
A study out of China 40 45,000 people showed that 80% of the cases we're very mild.
So it's important.
Understand that we start to talk about food who are most concerned about with flu.
Doctor acting will tell you people with chronic diseases, people with reduced long function or immune suppression.
So we need to think about those same people at risk.
If it were for the flu, right?
So we need to think about.
In that context, it is cold and flu season.
Think about the most fragile folks in our community and think about what we can do to protect them and support them.
And those are the folks that he should be seeking.
Care.
Allow Dr Boutros to talk about that from his facility standpoint, but certainly we want to make sure that the hospital's it will serve those that need the assistance most anybody else in the news media has back.
Clear back.
You see any parallels?
Yeah.
Here.
Thank you for that question.
I would say of all the things that I've been at this over 30 years.
Now the thing that it most feels like to most of my colleagues as well as h one n one, which means we're kind of in for a long haul and, as you know, with H one N one eventually was a vaccine.
So I think if you look back and a lot of our colleagues, there's an excellent mm W r.
From 2017 that takes all the lessons learned from H one N one.
And you can be certain Those are all things that were implementing now and in this in this situation, so very, very similar.
It's responsible for the cost.
That's a good question.
And for some people, insurance is covering it.
But we we will get the test done.
We have fun set aside, so we will make sure there will no one who needed a test that won't get a test.
What happened?
So yeah.
Yes, right.
So we do have public health laws and we have research those as we always do.
You know, I've used some of those laws when we had a legionella outbreak.
So we do have that ability at the state and local level, usually local goes first and and again, most often people comply.
But there are situations as we saw, you know, even with Ebola or measles, where, you know, we do have that ability to protect the public through quarantine.
The state has that ability as well.
Well, housing is a very important issue, and that is a big part of our strategic planning.
Because again, if you do have to quarantine someone, what do you do if someone is homeless?
What do you do if someone lives in a house with a lot of people?
They don't have that.
And you can see some of this already happening in the other states they're using, you know, places that the state has available often hotels have been used, or, you know, but we will find housing, and we have resource is I should say that Congress right now is looking at, You know, a special emergency appropriation.
And a lot of that funding will be to support.
If there was a need for larger quarantine, it would be for housing for transportation needs for wrap around like food for people.
If someone is quarantined that we are obligated under law to provide for their needs Go.
Hi.
Good.
You see?
Well, I think that's a good That's a good point.
I think I have not talked to the Secretary of State about this, but I would hope that there's an advisory put out a CE forest sanitation sanitizers.
Att.
Polling places across the state of Ohio again.
These are things that, as we think of them, we're going to add them.
Um, get your excellent idea.
Thank you, Governor.
Why?
Every bar should have one.
Okay, that that's a bad thing.
So thank you, Governor.
Thank you, Dr Hacken for coming.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
We're gonna stick around.
We're gonna have some of our medical personnel to answer any additional questions for you.
But I want to thank you for being here.
And I'm just going fight our out of quality and 100 infection control to come up If you guys have any questions.
Thank you very much.
Let's go.
Took here.
Get it, Steve.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Any further questions?
Hi.
Yes, 21 years.
Oh, my God Sr for now.
What time?
Thanks.
Okay.