While we do know there's some spread from neighboring states, there certainly is also significant spread among counties between counties as residents move, move about. But I just thought that was kind of interesting Just to see how this is how this is is in fact moving. We know that our small businesses have really been hurt throughout this pandemic. Many of them have closed. Many of them have just are hanging on on. They've virtually all of them have been hurt. In the next week or so, we'll be announcing steps to try to help these businesses. I wanna announced today that the checks that we announced on August 20th we'll go back to August 20th, where I asked the Bureau of Workers Compensation Board of directors to approve a second dividend for public and private employers as financial support during the ongoing pandemic. Well, we felt that BWC could do this and stay physically solvent and well, we also felt that business is needed This The board approved this request on September 25th. Those checks will be mailed to employers beginning I believe on Friday. The final dividend amount will be approximately $1.3 billion $1.3 billion that will be going out in checks starting on Friday, uh, to businesses throughout the state of Ohio. Distributions such as these are possible because of the strong investment returns on employer premiums, declining number of claims each year and prudent fiscal management. So our companies are doing well. BWC has been run very, very well and is doing a very good shop. These checks we mailed, starting as I say at the end of the week and they will mail out through through the end of October. So if you see a check an envelope come in the mail like this, please, please open it and see, we hope you'll see your check. Um, sometimes in the past, BWC tells me when these checks have gone out, some have simply gone on cash. Eso You know, you wanna make sure you get your check, you open up and envelope and see the check the check inside. Also later this week, we also be announcing programs to help small business on help others that we use cares act funding. I've been talking with the speaker on with the Senate President about this we're working with them and the development services agency DSA to create a wide ranging program to address the needs of some of our struggling Ohioans. This would include funding for rent, mortgages, water and sewer utility bills, as well as funding for small businesses and nonprofits. Again, we're looking towards the end of the week to make that joint announcement with the legislative leaders. I want to share something that the White House sent us this week. Um, as they analyzed, based on their data, what was going on in every state. Our letter obviously pertains to Ohio, and I just wanna wanna quote something that they wrote in their because as I looked at last night and it struck me is something that I thought I should share with all of you. This is from the Trump administration. We continue to see community spread initiated by social friends and family gatherings. People must remember that seemingly uninfected family members and friends may be infected and may not have symptoms exposure to those who don't have symptoms and that exposure to that asymptomatic spread could easily lead to spread as people unmasked in private gatherings. Um, the task force that sent us this White House task force recommended that Ohioans limit friend and family get togethers to prevent situations where the virus can rapidly spread and reach those most at risk of complications. It's the same thing, um, that I hear when I talked to county health commissioners around the state and when they tell me where we're seeing spread and that is where we're really seeing most. Most of the spread. Um, we're all excited beginning of Ohio State football season, and it's a Big 10 starts back up. Brown's friends, Bengal fans. Um, just just a word word of caution for all of us, and that is, as we get together to watch football. Just be careful. You know, if you're not in your direct family in your socializing, you know, keep a mask on and just just be careful. We feel that the teams for sample the Bengals, the Browns are doing a good job in the 12,000 fans that they have in their stadium on. We've seen them do a good job in the past. What we're really concerned about it just all of us is. We get together and watch it on TV, so please, please be careful. One talk a little bit about the vaccine that will be will be coming. Um, we this week submit Ohio's interim Draft Cove in 19 vaccine plan to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is a framework of how decisions will be made when we know more about the vaccine and will provide us a way forward as the next chapter of the pandemic unfolds. This draft will be available to the public tomorrow on the Cove in 19 website at coronavirus dot Ohio dot gov. If you want to take a look at that, uh, this week will also be taking another step in this fight against covered by launching a new registration tool for health care providers would like to eventually administer the cove in 19 vaccine. Uh, this proactive move allows us to better be prepared and respond quickly once the vaccine is available. Providers. This would be health departments, hospitals, pharmacies, nursing facilities. These would all be people that in organizations that we would anticipate, would be directly involved in the distribution of the giving of shots when the vaccine is available. They should all, um, um register. When this goes up on line this week, also something that's going up online today that we're announcing that our long term care facility dashboard is going live. This dashboard part of the cove in 19 Dashboard on coronavirus dot Ohio dot gov is another tool to help. Oh, Highlands. Keep informed. Nursing facilities were prevented to allow indoor visitation beginning October 12th, and we hope that they have done that. This tool breaks down the types of visitation facilities air allowing across the state so you'll be able to go online and check your county. If you've got a loved one in a nursing home, you can see what the status is of visitation with that nursing home. So this is more transparency. Uh, it's an effective we hope is an effective tool to help you. Aziz, we move, move forward. We talked briefly about flu update. Um, this fall we know will be fighting flu and covert. Both, um, we know that someone can have both and that the experts tell us that certainly is something that we all want to avoid. Uh, some symptoms of the flu and covert are similar on sometimes it may be hard to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone, some distinguishing symptoms of CO. But I'm told by the doctors, include shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell with flu, however, nasal congestion, runny nose, arm or common if you become ill this season, many health care providers will test for both flu and code to get a proper diagnosis. Further, While the symptoms can be similar, Kobe 19 is obviously more serious. Kobe 19 symptoms last longer. Those hospitalized tend to have longer hospital stays in the virus as a higher mortality rate. When especially encourage our young people who may not be thinking about getting a flu shot to get one. We know everyone should get one. Certainly the elderly should get one. Uh, I very, very young Children should get one. But sometimes those teenagers and those in college years, or maybe just out working at 22 23 years of age, uh, sometimes think that they should not get one. We would encourage them to get one a swell. You can get flu shot your doctor's office, you get retail pharmacies. Urgent care clinic, student health centers. In addition, many providers and local health departments are offering drive through and curbside flu clinics. For example. Recently, Perry County had a half day drive through drive through flu clinic. They had 370 people, almost as many as the 400 who were vaccinated in a full day. Uh, in a full day in 2019 Harrison County, double the number of people vaccinated over last year. In a recent drive thru clinic, Union County combined their typical sitting in county employees vaccination event with a drive thru clinic vaccinating more than 350 people. In a day's time, Washington County tripled the number that they had had before. So these are all encouraging, encouraging things. Your health departments are gonna be very aggressive, obviously. Also, get the flu shot at your doctor. You can get it pharmacies. And so we just encourage people, uh, to do that. We talked earlier about sadly record setting day on days in regard to hospitalizations. And so I thought it would be good, uh, to bring in someone who you've heard from before and someone who really, uh, is involved, not just in what is going on in Columbus, uh, extra medical center. But he is directly involved in the system that we have set up statewide. So we have divided the state early on in this pandemic into three different zones. Andi, some of the lead hospitals take the lead and work with the other hospitals. And I know, um, let me just introduce Dr Andy Thomas. Uh, Dr Thomas, thanks for being back with us. We appreciate it very, very much. I know you and I were talking before we went on the air. You're on the phone with, uh, smaller hospitals. I know several times a week and you're on. You're on the phone a lot with the hospitals in your zone. Your your particular zone as well. So just tell us kind of what's going on with our hospitals. We know we're seeing this hospital utilization go up. We don't like to see it, but what's the status of our hospitals around the state? Thank you, Governor. Thanks toe for having me here today. Uh, so, in terms of what we're seeing with hospital, um, a census from covered patients were certainly at the highest point that we've seen across the state at any time during the pandemic. In terms of total hospitalizations, here in Zone two, we are Atar highest rate since back in early May. Zone three is actually the highest rate That it's been at any time during the pandemic and remind everybody zone to is was where the three Jones are happy to zone. One spreads from the northern west part of the state through Cleveland, Youngstown, Akron, Canton, Mary and Bob Wiley, who's the chief clinical officer at Cleveland Clinic. Lead zone one Zone two is Regions 47 and eight. Region four spreads up 33 northwest of Columbus. Down through what we would call the central Ohio contiguous counties to Franklin County, then essentially everything 23 south, 33 south and 70 east at southeast quadrant of the state. And then zone three our regions three and six, which are essentially the date metropolitan area and everything to the West and then the Cincinnati in southwestern part of the state. Rick Lofgren from you see Health Eyes the lead for Zone three. So what we do a zone leads Thio, your point governor. Two days a week I'm on the phone with local public health folks here in Columbus, as well as the lead clinicians for a large group practices here in Columbus and the Columbus hospitals three days a week. We're actually on a call for all of the hospitals in the zone that have covered patients in the hospital once again talking about their capacity, talking about the volume of patients, making sure that we're coordinating things well around the zone. In fact, just yesterday at noon, we stood back up our regional transfer center here for his own, too, so that any hospital in the zone that needs to move a patient to Columbus, either because they have too many covert patients to manage in their hospital or a patient is too ill to be in their local community hospital and needs kind of a higher level of care. Any of those hospitals in the zone can call and essentially get a centralized call center so that we can make sure the patient is going to the right place at the right time to move between between hospitals. Also, in terms of clinical updates, uh, two Fridays ago, we had 130 infectious disease, emergency department, critical care and hospital medicine physicians, plus pharmacists and nursing leaders from all the zone hospitals on the phone, talking about the latest treatment protocols for Cove in 19. So we did that a number of times over the summer related to Renda Severe on this conversation, covered both from disappears Well, is convalescent plasma, steroids and a variety of other treatment protocol. So the zone leads in Zone one in Zone three have similar cadence of meetings with the hospitals and providing that sort of support for physicians at the local level s so that they don't feel like they're out at the end of the limb. That's great. So I interrupted you a few minutes ago. I asked you to kind of define the zones. Uh, go back and tell us again. You know, let's start with north East, Northern, Northern Tier of Ohio. What are we seeing in that in that zone? What we see in the other two zones? Sure. Well, the numbers air up in in every zone compared to earlier in the summer. Um, certainly we all saw peak in the spring and then another peak in that late July early August time frame. But Zone three is the one that is actually at the highest point at all during the pandemic in Zone one and two are certainly higher than we've been now for about 2 2.5 months. So the total number is certainly higher than we've had at any time during the pandemic. But I think what's really important is to talk about the distribution of those patients. So region seven and eight in my zone, or the rural areas of the state where you have smaller hospitals in their local communities. And actually part of our strategy is to make sure patients that may be, you know, ill enough to be in the hospital but not ill enough to need a high level of critical care or high end treatment may not be available at those hospitals. We want to try and keep his many patients locally as possible. So those regions maybe saw 10 15 20 patients in the past might be a 30 to 50 patients. Now, eso We're doing our best to support those local hospitals. There's excellent doctors, nurses, pharmacists working in those hospitals and if it if they're capable of taking care of patients, we want them to stay as close to home is possible. But when you look at the distribution of where patients are coming from across the state that need admitted to the hospital. It's very different than that April May time period where it was mainly patients from the metropolitan areas of the state and some of suburban areas around the big cities where hospitalizations occurred. E One Other major difference now is the number of DRC inmates that need to be in the hospital. We're seeing far better numbers in terms of the number of inmates that need to be admitted. The system for the state has done an excellent job once again of trying to take care of anyone who does become sick at their local facility. But obviously we're here as a backup as a hospital for any of those, uh, inmates that need admitted. So I think those are probably the biggest difference is in the distribution of the patients. This time around as well is just the overall numbers. So mawr coming from the rural areas more coming from a larger area of Ohio going into the hospitals, correct. And we're now we're now at a high. But you know, you know, I've talked You're not alarmed at this point. Tell us kind of the level of concern that we should have, because I get I get asked that question. So I figured I put the expert on understand? Thank you, sir. Understood. I completely understand the question. We've been having this discussion on all of our local and zone calls for the past two weeks because we've seen these numbers start to trend up a few weeks ago on, and all of the hospital executives and administrative and clinical leadership that we talked to feel that at this time we're doing okay, We the the concern I think that we have is we're not seeing the number of cases peak. We're not seeing the number of hospitalizations peak. And until we know where the peak of that curve is, it's a little anxiety provoking to say if we got to double or triple the numbers we have now not saying that's where it's going to go. But at this point, we just don't know where it's going toe to top out. So right now, all of the hospitals that I speak with feel that they can manage this level of capacity, you know, back in the spring, when we had somewhat similar numbers, slightly less than where we are now. The majority of our elective operations were actually shut down, so we actually had a lot of extra hospital capacity. We're now we're back in a period of normal operations for our hospital. So at some point, if the numbers just continue to rise and rise and rise will run into some difficult decisions to make. But right now we feel we have the capacity in our hospitals. We have surge capacity, especially in most of our larger hospitals, to actually increase the volume of patients that we take care of. So for the time being, were okay, But at the same time, if we don't start to see the numbers start to peek and come back down over the next few weeks, uh, you know, heading into what is normally a winter flu season where we already see in December in January relatively high hospital occupancy numbers, I think those thio you know, those two issues will collide at some point. If we don't see a change in the trajectory of our total cases in our total hospitalizations over the next uh, few weeks, Well, I know you've seen the chart Islands. You can see this one, but for our viewers, you know, this goes from April, October 16. This is patient count in the hospital. So it's not how maney air going in every day. But it's what the what? The census basically is in the hospital and doctor you were talking about Basically we don't know where this peak is. We've not hit. We clearly not hit a plateau yet on dso way, you know, we're always looking for that. Always looking for that plateau. We're really looking forward to go down, but we at least looking for a plateau. But it's been, you know. So this is, uh, everyone. This is the number in the hospital. Uh, this down here, the darker blue is in I c u and below that is in those who have event event so you can see those going. What's happening with those numbers? Usu numbers in the ventilator numbers tend to lag the hospitalization numbers a little bit. Most patients, when they present to the hospital, don't end up in the I c U for some do right off. But most for a number of days later so those will tend to trend up as the total hospitalizations continue to trend up. You know, as hospital leaders and physician leaders, nursing leaders, pharmacy leaders, we all are taught to prepare for the worst case scenario, whether it's about anyone individual, patient or in this case, uh ah, pandemic. So I know all of my colleagues are thinking about where do we go if two weeks from now the numbers look like this or four weeks from now, the numbers look like this. We're preparing for the worst case scenario at the same time, our goal in making sure people understand what they need to dio to try to get these numbers to peak, or the exact things that you describe on your press conferences and in your other speeches around the state. It zits relatively simple things, wearing a mask, distancing from others that don't live with you in your home, washing your hands routinely and making sure that businesses and other public areas air keeping high touch areas clean of of any risk of having the virus on them. Relatively simple things that will, hopefully to your point earlier. Even this afternoon, sir, that we've done this before. We've we've bent the curve and kept this from becoming, ah, worse problem than it's been twice over the past seven months. And I'm sure the citizens of Ohio are up to the task again. So the summary numbers going up throughout the state, all three zones, um, much mawr coming from the rural areas than we saw in the spring. And anyone region I think you mentioned one region worse than the other or so much different. Zone three, which is the southwest portion of the state, is seeing once again the highest numbers that they've seen at any time during the pandemic. They barely got the 300 patients, I believe this morning there were in the 3 70 range. They barely got 300 patients over the summer. So it is definitely feels very different to my colleagues down there. We're just gonna call yesterday morning, uh, discussing that, but it's really it's distributed all across the state. Region seven and eight, which are the rural zones for zone, too, are seeing the highest numbers over the past 10 days that they've seen it any time during the pain, which is generally southern Ohio South central, southeast Ohio. They're seeing more than they've ever seen. Correct? Correct, Doctor. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yeah. One more announcement. Interim Director of Health Lance Himes issued a directive to today to require all labs to start sharing all positive, negative, inconclusive and invalid test results related to Kobe 19 with you. How department health. Previously, labs were reporting positive covert results at the individual level as an accurate count for all other test results. Adding these categories will allow us together additional data form or complete picture of how covert is spreading in our communities. This will also allow us to provide positivity data by county in the coming weeks, something we've been looking forward to. It will take some time for us together enough data to provide these positivity rates, but we expect to have some information available by the second week of November barring any technical or reporting issues. Um, it wasn't just a question of issuing an order. If it was, we would issue the order a long time ago. But to get to this point of how Department of Health developed a technology solution to allow their systems to receive negative test results. The pandemic has shed a light on the need for better data collection methods and systems. And this is one of the improvements that, frankly, they've been working on and we've been waiting for. This will help address that issue in this specific area, reduce a paperwork burden on local health departments and will help ensure that we have the fastest and easiest reporting process for all parties involved, including labs on long term care facilities. So, again, positivity numbers by county that we can rely on our coming coming soon. Let me go to Lieutenant Governor, see if he has How much Thanks, Governor. Um, over over the past week, you really effectively explained what we are facing is a state with the increased number of cases, the number of high incident counties that we see growing. I noticed that on September the 19th, we had 19 counties that were considered high incidents, meaning that they had over 100 cases per 100,000. As of today, we have 69 counties that exceed that 100 cases per 100,000. And and as we saw in the chart earlier, there are many counties that air 304 100 cases per 100,000, which is highly concerning number. Yesterday I spent some time calling around to some of those counties who were at the levels of 304 100 cases per 100,000. On we talked. We talked about the threat that faces not just the state but those communities. Uh, in that as it's getting colder as people are going to spend more time inside. And unless we take some kind of action, it's very hard to break that trend. And in these conversations we talked about how they can attack these issues at the local level. We can make statewide policies, but we know that from our life's lessons that the closer you get to the source of the problem, the MAWR impact you can have on it. And we talked. We talked a lot about how to do that. I would like to highlight one county that I really believe has taken this charge seriously and just give it a little explanation about what they're doing, uh, to try to coordinate in Jackson County, I wanna highlight them. They they have presently 333 cases per 100,000, which is which is a high number. The county commissioners there have initiated weekly calls with county white officials with all the mayors of their communities, with the superintendents of schools, with the health director for the county and and other health officials and emergency personnel to talk through the issues that they're county is facing and how they could go about mitigating those issues. Um, this is an example of what every county conduce you, uh, to help bring their leaders together in controlling the spread. We really need people to engage like this at the local level, uh, in identifying hotspots, potential problems on that, you know, we all have community connections. This is an example of local government officials, but a lot of times their networks of not for profits, uh, their networks of businesses and business associations who could do these same kinds of things of coordinating efforts, learning from each other about best practices, talking about, For example, if your business how to talk with your employees about after work and in there in their personal lives and how they can help toe to mitigate the problem and and we're we want to thank those local officials and encourage them to take these leadership roles. It's not just coming from the governor, and from me, it's everybody has the ability to be a leader in helping to slow the spread. As the governor often says out, we can control this. These air, the fax. But we can control by our behavior by our actions how bad this gets in the in the coming months and just want to highlight Jackson County, uh, for what they're doing and talk with and talk about what others conduce. Oh, on. Then finally, a response to a question from last week in an update about the Ohio High School Athletic Association and the events that they are overseeing and how they're attempting to make sure that we don't have spread at those particular athletic events. Um, we, uh, we talked with the Ohio High School Athletic Association last fall on for those of you don't know that it is part of our responsible restart for sports. Uh, the Ohio High School Athletic Association has hired what we call observers to go out and evaluate. Uh, these game sites toe educate the schools about what they could do to make sure that they're keeping the facility, and the event is operating as safely as possible and to be accountable to provide those accountability measures. Measures. Uh, the observers from the Ohio High School Athletic Association in football have have visited 458 sites on observed 600 football games. Uh, at least 50 soccer games and at least 50 or soccer matches and 50 volleyball matches over the course of the fall s so far. Every visit results in a report back to the school to advise them on how they did what they could improve upon. In some cases, these reports have issued what they're what they would call a failing grade. And we know nobody in school likes to get a failing grade. Uh, and what, What? The athletic association, um, reiterated to me on a call that we had to discuss This was that this didn't mean that the school lacked a plan. It didn't mean that they refused to follow the protocols. It meant quite the contrary in most cases, that schools did react well to the report that they were given, um, and that the report didn't lack a failure oven attempt, but it really it really, um, focused on the failures to comply during the game, and what they emphasized to us was that it wasn't a lot the fans. It wasn't the ingress or egress, or it was a lot of times the student athletes themselves at a particular point in the game is you might have imagined where somebody scores a touchdown or somebody makes a great play or the games close at the end that those students are in their enthusiasm are congregating. They're getting close together on, and they're basically making the point to the schools that you got to try to control that. You can't allow that to happen. And the schools are being counseled on that. Those who those were There were extreme instances of, for example, fans not wearing masks that the game Those schools have received a warning. Letters from the Ohio High School Athletic Association in all of the schools who have received them have committed to improve compliance in those areas. Uh and the athletic association was not aware of an incident of spread due toa any of these compliance lapses, but they wanted to reassure us and the public that they have an accountability mechanism that they are sending observers out there. That they and their member schools take these responsibilities seriously on the bottom line is because right now it's it's playoff season. It Z, whether it's golf or basketball or or or, I mean, golf or volleyball or football. It's playoff season, and the schools themselves and the student athletes themselves have the most at stake. Uh, they could lose their season if they don't comply. And Esso? They felt good about where things are from the first game they saw. They saw a lot of confusion Week one. But those educational opportunities have made compliance and and help the schools operate thes these venues. Ah, lot more successfully over the course of weeks. So, Governor, that's the report back from the Ohio High School Athletic Association on the accountability and and and the potential lapses that have occurred during course of the fall turn. Thank you. Thank you very much. And shout out to our friends in Jackson County. Um, you know, everything is local and the ability of communities to come together, um, and talk about how they're gonna fight back against the virus is really something that's just exceedingly exceedingly important. Let me just before we go to questions. Uh, talk about sadly gun violence in Ohio every week. I do this on its sad. Sadly, it's just every week. There just gut wrenching stories on DWI. This is something we can fix. The Legislature has a bill in front of it. I don't think I don't know who is against going after repeat violent offenders getting them off our streets. People who have no right to have a gun who continue to have guns. Um, from October 13th through the 19th, at least a dozen people were shot and killed in Ohio. Another 24 or more was shot and wounded, some critically. Um headline one. Austintown Mahoning Valley Suspect charged with fatally shooting manat Austintown apartment complex. Now we looked into the suspect's record to find that he's been prohibited from carrying a gun since 2000 and eight. Since 2000 and eight. He's not been allowed to carry a gun, uh, find a conviction on drug and gun charges. He was placed on probation, violated that probation Three times before he was autumn, Lee sent to prison in 2000 and 12 suspect was released in 2013 and in 2015 he was involved in a shooting as well as another separate incident involving a gun. Um, these two cases, um, resulted in four years of incarceration. Incarceration. He was released in June 2019 and was arrested again in October 2019 in Pennsylvania. He was released from Pennsylvania's custody in May 2020. Now, less than five months later, he's accused of murder here in Ohio. Headline, too. This one happened yesterday yesterday in Columbus. Five injured in shooting, Crashing Italian village to young Children. Shot suspect charged That's the headline. According to media reports, 25 shots were fired into an SUV which crashed. Three kids were in the vehicle. A two year old who was shot in the leg, a four year old who was shot in the chest. A five year old who was injured in the crash. The driver was grazed by a bullet. A woman who was hit by the car is said to have suffered serious injuries. Suspect, who is accused of this crime of opening fire on a car full of Children, is prohibited already by law from carrying a gun, he served six years for aggravated robbery and firearms charges before his sentence expired in May. A warrant for his arrest was also filed last week in conjunction with an unrelated assault. Both suspects in these cases are certainly innocent until proven guilty. But these are the exact scenarios that we can help prevent through Senator Dolan's bill. There's pending right now in the General Assembly. It will save lives. We'll go. The questions, Governor First question today is from dander rose at w O I O in Cleveland. Good afternoon, Governor. How are you, Governor? I wanna walk you through. I hear from two types of people in Ohio today. I took a phone call about an hour before the news conference from a viewer who is very panicked at the numbers that are escalating, basically saying You're not doing enough that you need to find some new level of either enforcing mask, whether it's through enforcement tickets, whether it's local police or maybe new levels of shutdown. As the numbers came out, I took a text message from another viewer who said that at eight deaths today, it's not that serious and that we should never have shut down two months ago. So who's correct here? Who is on the right side of this? Uh, especially as numbers escalate. You know, I'm always saddened by people say we only lost eight people today. I just That makes me sad because for each one of those people who died, they had loved ones. They were mother, father, sister, brother, child on to trivialize these lives is I hear some people doing is I just I just do not do not understand it Others others say Well, most of them were over 70. Most of them had a medical problem. I just I just don't know how we can respect life. Onda come up with that kind of attitude. So it's it's it is serious to your viewer. Who said we should do more? I will tell you. I ask myself that question every single day on I asked, What else can we do? Were significantly increasing the testing. We're doing everything we can to get this out a squiggles we can. I spent parts of the last eight or nine days flying around every media market in the state to talk directly to the people of that region about what we're seeing in the numbers. Um, but what we're seeing is most of the spread is coming from people who are doing informal things. It may be in their home. Uh, it may be in their backyard. It may be getting together someplace else on. People are letting their guard down when they're with friends. They're letting their guard down when they're with family. Andi, this is a virus that is sneaky. Nasty because it rare is up any place. And many times the people who have it don't know. They have it on their carrying it and they can spread it. Um, we don't have the ability to go in people's houses, and we don't want to do that. Um, but there is a remedy, and the remedy is very much at hand. Andi, I think I got a call from legislative friend of mine yesterday who told me about two different two different examples in counties that he represents. Ah, where people were who in the past had not worn mask we're wearing mask within the last few days, basically said you're concerned they're seeing these numbers go up. They know more people who are coming down with it. They're changing what they're doing. So I'm optimistic it is within our capacity to change the future the fastest way we could do it. It's not for me to issue some order, uh, that you can't enforce or be difficult to enforce, but rather for every Ohioan to take this seriously. And just to think, you know, it's only a mask. It's on Lee a mask. Uh, you know, we think of sacrifices that have been made by people for this country have been huge. This is on Lee a mask, and we're just asking people toe, Wear it. There may be some people who can't wear one. That's fine. I had a medical problem is fine, but we get 85 90 95% of people wearing masks. We'll knock this thing down. And so, to your viewer, your caller, that's that's what I would say. Help us get that message across to everyone. Because what each one of us does determines whether our kids go to school whether we keep working, whether we keep this virus down. Next question is from Jim Adia, W h i O in Dayton. Good. Um, daughter. Good afternoon. I wanted to go back to the, uh, financial help that you're about to provide to people. What is the total dollar amount you have to work with? This is from the Cares Act what your overarching goal is. And how would that interplay with the federal stimulus money that is coming? We think in a month or two or three whenever they figure that out on their end in D. C. How would that work together? That's a very good question. We've got a lot of balls in the air and we don't know uh, exactly what's going on because we don't know what the Congress is going to do. And I remain an optimist. Um, I think Congress is going to take action. I think there's a deal there to be had. I think they will pass something this year. I think when they pass it, they will have more money in different different tranches. Different different causes, different reasons, but the same time they will give us more flexibility that we can roll this money over eso. We're making decisions now, Jim, based on not really knowing what the future is, can we move this money across the line? on 31st of December into the next year or can't we? Onda, we don't really know what's coming. So what we did was we tried to be conservative throughout this. What we hope to be able to do is hold on to some of this money, frankly, so we could make sure that testing we always have enough money through testing. Until we get the immunity that we need that's gonna come through it, we think through immunization. So we're balancing all these things in our mind. So what, you're gonna see us come out on probably on Friday, eyes a conservative approach which gets money out to clearly to people who need it right now, with the understanding that there may be more money coming, some of this may become from the federal government. We may be able to take some money and put it out, but I think is the governor of the state. My obligation is first to make sure that we have the money necessary to con to test as much as we contest. There's many. Test is we can get in here and do the tracing, the testing and the tracing, and we've got to have money for that because if we can't do that, we can't keep the virus under control. If we can't keep the virus under control, everything goes out the window. So it's a balance. I'm an optimist. I think Congress is gonna do something. Give us get a bill. I think there's a deal there to be had. Governor, can I add a couple of points there? To that, to Jim's question, is that Look, we know this is a particularly difficult time for businesses. There's a lot of the federal assistance is run out, and this is really helping to build a bridge to a better day, Uh, to a federal plan to a time when the virus is is more under control. And this is building a bridge to save a business to save a job. And I think what the governor is is, uh, putting together is is gonna be impactful. Azzawi roll that out in the coming days. Next question is from Kenny Baths at WC HS in Charleston, West Virginia. Hi, Governor. You talked a lot in your last briefing about Thanksgiving and the holiday season, which many people course translated the moving through Christmas and New Year's. But with the Halloween just 11 days away, and it's become really the biggest party for adults in America, not just Children trick or treating, and with the situation that it is in Ohio right now, what is your message for people who are still planning Halloween parties get togethers? And should everyone just resigned themselves to wearing doctor and nurse costumes this year? We could, of course, include masks. Thank you. Well, I don't know about doctor nurse costumes. Uh, I know for a while we were We were seeing pictures of, ah, lot of young girls dressing up. Is Dr Amy acting and we're seeing We're seeing that, um but, you know, I would hope that we would see a few more people dressed up kids dressed up as first responders, uh, doctor or nurse, because they're doing so very, very much people who work in our nursing homes and they're just doing a fantastic job. Look, I I think there's there's a way that people could do trick or treat. I always kind of come back to, you know, what do we really care about? We want to try to provide something for kids. Uh, but we want to do it in a safe way, and I think parents consume provides that and come up with a safe way of doing it. Don't Don't go right up to that door. Uh, you know, if the lights on hope that there's some Candies out there and for the people in the house, you know, don't put it so the kid has toe. Every kid has to go into the same pot and and pull it out. You know, there's way. There's ways of I think of doing this, but it's for a Sfar as adults having parties look unless they can figure out a really safe way to do it. I think the answer is just don't do it. Um, you know? But let's let's let's all be around next Halloween. Make sure we're all here. Um, you know, let's don't take chances on for for one night of dressing up and going to a party. You know, if you wanna wanna wanna dress up in your own house and, uh and, uh, you know, Greek kids from a distance at the door. That's kind of a cool thing. Maybe you could dio um there's other things to do. But as far as getting together with parties, it just look that probably going to be inside. Andi, you know, I suppose there's a way to do it if you wear a mask and you keep it outside and but, um, you know, just let's look to the future. Next question is from Ben Schwartz at WCPO in Cincinnati. They've been high governor. Um, Vice President Pence is set to hold a rally around Cincinnati tomorrow. The Trump campaign says all attendees will be given a temperature check and masks. We have had a viewer reach out, though Who wants to know how much with how much cases air rising right now. Will Ohioans be able to be assured that everyone at the event will actually wear those masks they're given and remain somewhat distance? Well, look, I think that, you know, our message has been clear. Um, And now, as you point out, as your viewer pointed out, the, um, cases air up dramatically. There are dramatically up in southwest Ohio where you would assume most of the people will be will be coming coming from eso. I would just, you know, tell everyone they really need to wear mask. If they go this event, they need to keep some space. Um, you know, thistles your life, this steak. And you know, you don't know who is going to be there on you Don't know even people who, you know, Maybe there don't know they have it, but might have it. So when you're going into an environment like that, I would be very, very careful. I wouldn't wear a mask and I wanna look around and see if other people were in mass to I mean again. Our message is the same, whether it's a trump rally, a Biden rally, whether it's a protest, whatever it is, you know, be safe, protect the other person, protect yourself. Next question is from Laura Hancock at Cleveland dot com. Laura. Hi, Governor. Um, we were wondering, um, you've talked a little bit about cases, but the age going up in cases in recent weeks, eso In other words, cases of older people are increasing, and we were wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on that. Why is that? Well, I don't think anybody really knows for sure why that is, but it is a marked change from June July. When we saw the last bike we saw the last spike. It was over 50% was under 30 years of age. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, nor do I have a chart in front of me. But these numbers are creeping up. And so you know what we're assuming but don't really know. We're assuming that this is a rebound from young people who had it earlier on who have have infected older people. Uh, you know, that's that's about the best we can do. At least the best I can do is faras uh, trying to figure out what what really is going on. But it worries us because we know the older group of people you get, The more likely they are to end up in the hospital, the more likely they are to die. So, you know, it doesn't mean that the 50% that in June were under under 30 or were totally safe. But statistically, you're you know you're gonna have fewer people end up in the hospital. The younger group, so the age group is certainly is certainly certainly going up and it's worrisome, and I'll try on Thursday to break those numbers down a little bit further. We'll take a look at where they are as of Thursday. Next question is from Jim Province at the Toledo Blade. It's the governor. Um, it's been a month since the Dayton until Leo areas where the sites of large political rallies. Now, you've talked about the pence rally coming up. Um, but you since you've noticed that the western part of the state has been problematic for us for the last few weeks, Lucas and Montgomery counties of both in the red. Now, have we found any connection between those rallies and any cases that a tested positive? Yeah, I'll ask the local health departments Is I recall I've got check. Uh, some of them did find a connection, but I wanna I wanna verify that, and we'll get back to you about about that. Um, look, any Any time you get a group of people coming together in large numbers way, worry about, we certainly worry about there not wearing masks. Um, you know, we've seen ah lot of spread, particularly southwest Ohio, all the way through this. Uh, if you go back. You know sadly, Montgomery County County, Right next door, toe friend. I live Green County, Uh, you know, has been read a novel. Lot is this thing is going through it. So, um, certainly in in southwest Ohio, the virus has has has been here, and the numbers have been pretty high for a long time. We've also seen along the particular rural counties going up in northwest Ohio, particularly Long Indiana border A couple counties even over leased to deep, sometimes three deep. Those counties have been high for extended period of time. I mean, some of those counties have been read for 12 I think 11 or 12 separate weeks. So, you know, it's thes count. These areas were already going the wrong way. Unfortunately, next question is from Max Philby at the Columbus Dispatch. Hey, Governor. Action. I wanted to ask if you could speak a little bit to the vaccine plan that's getting published later this week. Online. Um, is this supposed to be sort of a living document of sorts? And can you speak a little bit more to the complexities of this distribution model? Yeah, Living document might be a good way to describe it. Um, it is, you know, something the federal government wanted from us? Our big You know, our next step is to go online on, get thes the different places signed up. Um, you know, this is obviously being driven by the federal government by the administration. They want to make sure the states air ready, which I fully fully understand and appreciate that. Um, you know, ah, lot of this may be sent the directly, uh, directly to the people who are going to end up administering it. Some of it, uh, it looks like will come to us so we can break it out into smaller parcels. Eso that's just a basic distribution issue. Onda again, we're waiting for further information from the federal government, but I think part of it's gonna go directly to a hospital, you know, bigger hospital. Certainly gonna get it directly. You know, other places may be more efficient for us to have to break break it out is going to come and fairly large chunks Onda again. We don't know when this is going to be, You know you're following it just like we are on tv. Um, federal government has come up with some preliminary priorities. They certainly are. The logical priorities, Uh, pretty much match what we've looked at, which is we want to take care of, you know, of the most vulnerable people first, but also at the same time. Try to take care of you, get immunized. Those who are the front lines, people who are dealing with people with Cove in. We've got to get them taking care of early on. So those two, those two groups early on, then we move into other groups beyond that. Next question is from Jesse Balmer at the Cincinnati Enquirer. Jessica? Hi, Governor. My question is looking at the high number of hospitalizations today. Are there any sort of changes that you would anticipate making at the surge if there was a surge such as limiting elective surgeries again? And then a quick question are you are the Lieutenant governor going to the pence rally in Cincinnati tomorrow? Okay. Yeah. You know, I'm not going, um e don't know where the lieutenant governor's going or not. He can. He can answer that as's faras what we do. Um, you know, when elective surgeries were cut off, Um and we issued an order on that. That Was that the advice of our hospitals? Um, so you know Cincinnati? I was in Cincinnati on Friday, and right before I got there, I saw a story. Uh, may have been your story, Uh, that basically said that. You know, they were quoted on the doctors, uh, saying that, you know, we have two weeks. Cincinnati, southwest Ohio. We had two weeks to get this under control. If we don't, we're starting to jeopardize elective surgeries, so we don't want to do I mean, we don't want to see that. And my my point is, if that's going to be driven by what the hospitals air seeing and what their spaces and they're gonna know and, you know, it may hit one hospital at one point, another one and another point. But, you know, we still have time. We still have time to slow this down. We do not wanna be, uh you know what? We've seen time and time again on TV. We're getting in Italy and then New York and New York and a different places. We don't wanna be that we have avoided it. I would say to my fellow highlands. We've We've done well. We've avoided this. We had a lot of great tragedy, but we've not had these huge spikes and we just don't want to see that. And we can. We really can control this. We've got to control. Now is the time. Now is the time to get on it. We got to do it, Governor. Just quick. Answer to the question. I visited with Vice President Pence last week when he was in Columbus, but I do not attend. Do not intend Thio go to the event tomorrow in Cincinnati. Yeah, let me just add one thing. But Vice President Pence on I I talked to him, You know, regularly. Um, he's done a phenomenal job with the White House task force. Were on the phone generally once a week within a bigger group, sometimes one on one. But, uh, always, you know, certainly in a bigger group with governors and, you know, very, very focused. Uh, he's been exceedingly focused on saving lives exceedingly focused on keeping the spread down and appreciate what he's done. Next question is from Adrian Robbins, a wcmh in Columbus. Governor, you said what's at stake is our Children being able to go to school. You've left the decision on how to open up schools up to the local level up to this point. But with the spread of the coronavirus happening statewide, are you considering maybe statewide action on schools of cases continue to go up? And just as a a side note, do you still plan on addressing the last call for bars and restaurants this week? Yeah, we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna do the bars and restaurants, Sadly, um, you know, I understand. I've heard talked to bar owners, restaurant owners, and I understand what's at stake for them. But with these numbers going crazy, we can't do this now, so I hope in the future will be able to lift those hours, But we're not gonna It would be, in my opinion, very irresponsible at this point for a governor to do this. So we got a Let's start getting those numbers. Get those numbers down. And I'm sorry you had a second. You have a second question, I think. Yes. Sorry, Governor. My second question was just You've left the decision up to first pulls up to the local level Would you consider statewide action, though? If if cases continue to go up well, I think you know there's there's a much better option, and that better option is Ohioans. You know, we're in the mask keeping safe. We we can control this. But my point is I started was simply that there's a lot at stake as we see this spread, and we're already seeing schools making decisions to go remote. We're seeing schools making decisions to continue remote, you know, and many times we're seeing these decisions being made in our cities on DSO. What's at stake is we have a large number of our Children in our cities and other places who are totally remote. And if we can't get control of this, these schools are not gonna flip back to hybrid or flip back to five days a week. You're starting to see them now, make decisions to continue for the rest of the year, rest the calendar year, at least remote, and I think we should consider what impact that has on these Children. I'm not questioning why the schools were doing it, but what I am saying is we can create a better environment so thes schools don't do this, don't feel that they need to do this. We can create the environment in our communities. And it's incumbent upon us, the adults to do that so that our kids could be in school. Now some kids air do very well remotely. Some kids have a lot of support. They got parents, um, they Sometimes they got grandparent's. They're working with them. They do okay. We have other Children who may not have that Andi way have to worry about them. And we have to worry about the long term impact of the of these Children so we can control this and again. My plane today again is let's do that for the sake of our kids. Next question is from Alex Ebert at Bloomberg Good Afternoon, governor. There's a business roundtable group in Ohio that is urging businesses to tell there workers to vote for Republican aligned candidates for the Supreme Court or risk losing their jobs as, uh, prosecutor for years and as the state's attorney general, who is before the justices on the court, How does this make you feel about the way this group is portraying the court and what will happen if certain justices are elected. Thanks. Well, I don't know what the facts are. You know, these thes thes air, Always fact riven. Obviously, no one can or should tell their employees how to vote. They can't tell them that if they vote a certain way that they're gonna because they voted a certain way, they're gonna lose their job. Businesses based on the First Amendment certainly have the right to tell their employees what they think employees have equal right to do what I really want to do. And so but no one can condition a job on how you vote. First of our ballots are secret and are protected anyway. But so I don't know the fax, but those would be the basic guiding principles that I think should should guide us all. Next question is from Laura Bischoff at the Dayton Daily News. Um, hi, Governor. You talk about you, you It's your understanding that a lot of the spread is from informal gatherings. Is that anecdotal, or is there some real data from contact tracing that tells us that, um, and also, given the trajectory of Ohio's numbers, what are the risks of having 3 to 4 million voters going directly to the polls two weeks from now. Well, Secretary LaRose told May that he thinks it's very possible this was a week ago, so numbers may have changed, but it's very possible that we'll have more people vote before election day than vote on election Day. Even with the increased turnout, which would appear we're having, um, it means that people are gonna be more spread out on Election Day. I am not. I think people could do this safely. They've got to be careful. Um, you know, they need if they have ample opportunity to vote before they could do it by absentee ballot, they could do go to the board elections this weekend. Of course, you know, opens up weekend voting. People go to the board of Elections again. Try to figure out when there's not a lot of people there, stand in line, keep the distance, wear a mask. Um, so I think on election Day yes. People could go if they're careful. Um, and they could vote. Um, so I think that, you know, the people have had a What's different about this is that people have had a long enough time to understand the virus and how it has spread so that they could take their own circumstances into account and make a decision. Do I wanna go vote in person? Do I want to go sit in my home and fill it out and never have to go out? And so people have had a chance to make those decisions. They're making those decisions and, you know, I feel I feel that it's certainly it can be, but it's important. It's important that everyone who go the polls wear a mask. Um, you know, you've got poll workers who were sitting there and pull workers. I worry a lot about they're there for 13 hours that's open the polls open and then assume they get there an hour or so before and then after. So they're they're a long, long day and for at least 13 hours there, directly in contact with with voters. And so they you know, we should help them on, make sure they can stay safe by everyone who goes through that line. Everybody who goes to vote, uh, should wear a mask. Mhm. Next question is from Josh Rotenberg at Spectrum News Hi, Governor. Just wanted to follow up on Adrian. Question. I'm not sure you answered it directly. Are you considering statewide action on schools? Not at the moment. Why not? Yeah, the answer is not. Yeah, and I did not answer that. And, um, not at the moment. I mean, the situation I described is where I think we are today. We are a local government state we have relied on throughout our history. We have relied on our local school boards, our local families to make decisions about their school. Um, going through a very, very tough period of time, we still rely on those families to make decisions. We give them a lot of guidance. Uh, excuse me. Put on a mask order, which was not very popular with some people on, with the exception of you know, one or two schools, um, teachers, principals have done a great job. Students have done a great job and wearing masks and doing everything they can to be safe. Um, while we have seen some cases, certainly associate ID with schools. Um, the spread in schools themselves, with students wear a mask. We don't believe from what we're seeing is huge. Any time you put people together, there's a risk, but they're doing it in the safest way, as they can in person. Still, there is always some risk, and there's a particular risk. When the county positivity rate is high, the number of cases are high. And so again, one of the reasons we put out the the color code one of the reasons we list the counties and so you can look and see how many cases are in your county relative to other counties for the last two weeks. Reason We put that data out all the time, everyday eyes so that people can make decisions about Should my child go to school should the school stay open? What should the school dio? Um, but we also know that in person for most kids is probably the best, and he is the best, and so that's kind of where we would hope to get. But we can't get there when we've got these high numbers. So we've got Thio. We've got to deal with the high numbers and we can deal with them. But if we don't, it's abundantly clear from what we're seeing Is Mawr Schools are going online and more schools are extending online and some schools that were in person before now going online and as a natural consequence of the rise in cases in the community. So it's incumbent upon the adults. It seems to me to drive those numbers down, and we have the power to do it. Next question is from Jack Windsor and W. M F. D In Mansfield. Jack, Hi Governor Amy Acton said that her dream was to have immunity certificates that would allow people to reclaim their freedoms and be admitted back to normal life. She also indicated the desire to eliminate any exemptions for vaccines. Now Dr Fauci has signaled that the first vaccines may not be highly effective. So given the fact that acting was so adamant and it appears is still giving some advice to the administration for your previous comments two part question. Eyes that your position to require vaccination and immunity proof in order to go back to normal life? Or will you back door mandate a vaccine by allowing businesses and schools to shut people out? You don't choose to vaccinate. Mm hmm. You act. I'm sorry. You're still you're still attacking Dr Acting. You know, I'm just sorry that you feel it necessary to do that. But I didn't attack Dr Act, and I just I just indicated what she stated. Okay. Okay. All right. Um, look, um, we're not going to require anyone to get a vaccine. Um, that's not gonna be any any requirement. We hope people will get vaccines. Andi, I think that when people watch the process occur, watch people go through it. Watch what the 500 says. Watch what the experts say. Say about this, um, that they're gonna have confidence, and they'll be willing to, You know, a significant number of people enough people will be willing to take the vaccine, but we're not. We're not. We don't require any vaccination. Uh, we don't require I'm not gonna require them to take a vaccine. We hope that they will. And I think also we'll see when we'll see the results of what happens. Uh, when the first responders take it and others take it, and I think that will build, I think that should build confidence in people that they will want to take the vaccine. But we're not going to require that go on. Our next question is the last question today, and it belongs to Kevin Landers at WBNS in Columbus. Governor Kevin, Governor For seven months, you've told people about the importance of wearing a mask and the numbers of positive cases or higher hospitalizations air higher than however before. Does this lead you to believe that you're responsible behavior is driving up the numbers? And if so, how do you combat that when your words don't seem to be resonating with people? Thank you. Well, a Zai mentioned a little bit ago. I got a call from a legislator talking about to rural rural counties where I know the spread has been high and what he basically told me one to call me yesterday and he said, Look, I wanna tell you good news on he says. A lot more compliance in these two counties, as I was events within the last I think week. And he said, People are scared. They're concerned, uh, in there there's a lot more high compliance. And he says, I think that when people are are see what the reality is that they will, you know more and more people will will wear masks. So I'm optimistic. Um, I think that we will see this. And, you know, we saw it before, Um, Ohio Islands in June, July when we started. That's when we saw that surge. We knocked that surge down. And how did we do it? Well, one of the main ways we did it was to wearing a mask, and we saw mass compliance in urban areas, which is where, at that time, we were seeing a real real spike. Um, that mass compliance went up dramatically. So I'm optimistic. I think that again, as communities come together which were asking them to do to talk about this and and to talk about what is the best plans, they can keep their schools open best plan so they could move forward their economy. I think they're gonna come to the conclusion that this is what has to be done. And so I'm I think we're gonna turn this thing around again. We've done it twice before. We can certainly certainly do it this time. So that was the last question. Um, I will close for where I began. Um, these numbers are grim. They're going the wrong direction. Every everything is going the wrong direction, but we know what will work. We've done this before. We've done on two other occasions on there is so much, so much at stake and again to close where I started. One of the most important things that is its stake is the education and the future of our Children. No, we do not want to skimp or any way hurt the education of our young people. In the best way to do that, the best way to keep them in school is for each one of us to wear a mask, each one of us to keep a distance, each one of us. When we're thinking about a Halloween party, say no, we're not gonna do it when we're thinking about getting together with friends or family who, you know, don't live with us closely. Um, say look, we gotta have a mask on. We've got to be very, very careful if we do that, if we do that and I think we will, we're gonna knock this thing down and we'll have more of our kids in school and we'll be able to give them the education that we really Oh, them and that's what this is. It's about a lot of things, but certainly about our kids. Look forward to seeing you all on Thursday. Thank you very much.