COVID-19 is by far the biggest concern of Ohioans, according to a statewide poll conducted last month by a collaborative of Ohio media organizations.
So Your Voice Ohio, a journalism collaborative of more than 50 news outlets across the state, brought more than two-dozen Ohioans together for a series of virtual roundtable discussions in early August. The media collaborative wanted to know how the pandemic was affecting their lives, how they’re coping and how they envision the path ahead.
“Regardless of who you support, this isn’t a game,” said Adam Seal, a 30-something from Lake County whose mother has a high COVID-19 risk and whose small, family-run HVAC company is teetering on the brink.
“People’s lives are on the line here,” he said. “We hear a lot of opinions. We need a unified message. We need to be listening to experts. Our governments need to be working together. We need to be on the same page.”
These Ohioans said they’re grappling with a withered economy and widespread unemployment; choosing which monthly bills to pay and which to put off; balancing on the high-wire, not knowing what’s below to catch their fall.
They feel their voices are drowned out by the presidential election year.
More than 100,000 Ohioans have been infected with the coronavirus and 4,000 have died.
The participants shared a pervading sense of uncertainty — whether their businesses and homes can weather this storm; whether they’ll remain healthy; whether it’s too risky to hug their grandchildren; whether they’ll ever get their lives back. And to whom can they turn for answers and a clear direction?
‘TAKE CHARGE’
Participants told us there’s been little that’s felt reassuring about the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Many participants in each of the five regional sessions said they believe Americans aren’t following the same pandemic playbook. They said officials should be leading from the top down with fact-based policy backed by the best medical science — and there should be no partisan squabbling.
“I just want whomever is in charge to take charge. I’m proud to be an American, but I even questioned that as I watched some countries make tough decisions,” said Joey Saporito of Cincinnati. “I travel a lot. Other countries don’t want us because we’ve taken control of [the pandemic] so poorly.”
JoEllen Hayes, who lives with her veterinarian husband on a 70-acre farm between Cambridge and New Concord, said Ohio’s pandemic response was “superb” under former Ohio Department of Health director Dr. Amy Acton. But it’s become “fractured.” She’s “frustrated and heartbroken” that some Ohioans regard the pandemic as a “hoax.”
“Everybody needs to get on the same page,” said Carol Dillon, a cashier living in Zanesville, who joined Hayes and others in southeast Ohio’s session.
“You don’t know who to believe. Some are saying it’s no worse than the flu,” so messaging about the dangers needs to be clear and consistent from the top of the command chain down, she said.
The first U.S. case of coronavirus transmission from person-to-person was reported Jan. 30. In February and March, both Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams publicly recommended against the use of surgical or N95 masks by the general public.
At the time Fauci said his recommendation was out of concern for U.S. health care workers who faced a nationwide shortage of personal protective equipment. Adams then asserted masks were not effective in preventing virus spread. Adams later switched his stance after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending masks in April, based on new findings.
President Donald Trump said at the time: “You can do it — you don’t have to do it. It’s only a recommendation. … I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.”
The dissonance was obvious to Your Voice Ohio participants, many of whom spent part of their weekday afternoons tuning into DeWine’s regular addresses.
“If your perspective has changed, acknowledge the shift. That’s part of being a leader. And if not, maybe you’re not a leader,” said Cecelia McFadden of northeast Ohio. “I’d like to see some integrity. I’d like to see a plan. I work in systems, so there are always plans. That’s what I don’t see.”
Ken Yuchasz, a middle school teacher in Somerset, used to believe coronavirus was a flu. Since then, his school closed and he’s installed a decontamination station at the back of his house to keep the medically vulnerable members of his family safe.
He showed his students an educational video on the 1918 Spanish flu. Public sentiment on today’s pandemic is divided, as it was 100 years ago, he said.
“Nowadays, we don’t feel we have a common enemy,” Yuchasz said.
Michael Rankin of Dover called the initial pandemic response “haphazard,” and said he expected Americans “ought to have it together by now.”
“We ought to have a unified front, and there just doesn’t seem to be a real coherent plan across the nation.” he said. “Gov. DeWine did a great job and state leadership did a great job. Nationally, we haven’t stepped up and gotten on board.”
Ohio was one of the first states to act aggressively by closing schools and nonessential businesses. Today, the state ranks 22nd in the country with a death rate of about 34 per 100,000 people, far better than neighbors Michigan, Pennsylvania and Indiana and lower than the national rate of 54 per 100,000.
DeWine, during an Aug. 20 briefing on the state’s coronavirus response, said he doesn’t expect pandemic deniers to listen to him — rather, the medical experts.
“The mask order is a prime example. I understand the controversy with masks, but if you talk to the best experts you can find … the jury’s returned. There’s no dispute. Masks are very important.
“I think it is a prudent, conservative approach to do some sacrifice wearing a mask so that you can have more freedom,” DeWine said. “To me, that is the ultimate conservative approach. It is an approach that expands liberty, an approach that expands freedom.”
Though DeWine has been consistent on the importance of masks, he was restrained in using executive powers to enforce them.
Ohio has averaged about 1,073 new cases per day from July 23, when the statewide mask mandate took effect, to Aug. 23. The state averaged 1,059 new cases per day for the month prior to the mandate.
The number of coronavirus tests administered each day in the state continues to climb. From July 21 to Aug. 21, an average 22,338 people were tested per day. When the mask mandate took effect July 23, the seven-day moving average of positive tests was 6.4 percent. As of Aug. 21, it had dropped to 4 percent.
As Ohio’s nonessential spaces began to reopen in late April and early May, DeWine mandated masks for employees and customers — but, the next day, downgraded the order to simply a recommendation for customers.
“People in America don’t like ‘no,’” said Yvette Kelly-Fields of southwest Ohio. “Most people don’t understand freedom isn’t free. … When seat belts were first mandated, people fought against it.”
Another in Kelly-Fields’ regional group said she felt pandemic directives shouldn’t be up for debate.
“There isn’t a place for politicizing a health crisis. There is no perspective that should be different,” said the Dayton-area woman who’s a Type I diabetic and at greater risk from COVID-19 and has since scuttled schooling and career plans.
When DeWine’s administration unveiled the Ohio Public Health Advisory System in late June, public mask-wearing was mandated in counties that met enough indicators of virus spread to be placed in the “red” alert phase. Less than a month later, DeWine again mandated masks statewide.
Tom Fryman, a retired marketing researcher in the Greater Columbus area, said the
pandemic has brought out “extremes in people’s personalities.”
“It has gotten so toxic, such disagreement,” Fryman said. “There is little cooperation. It seems like way too much posturing. It’s all about posturing.”
Want to volunteer for a future dialogue and receive $125 for two hours? Register at the Your Voice Ohio Election 2020 website.
About this project
This is one in a series of stories on issues Ohioans say are most important in this election year. More than 50 news outlets are collaborating in the project under the umbrella of Your Voice Ohio, the nation’s largest sustained, statewide news media collaborative. In five years, Your Voice Ohio has brought more than 100 journalists together with more than 1,300 Ohioans for discussions on addiction, the economy and elections. The project is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Democracy Fund and Facebook. The Jefferson Center for New Democratic Processes designs and facilitates the dialogues.