Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers:
Bypass all the bureaucracy to find a cure
The Warren Tribune Chronicle
May 4
Give federal regulators credit for recognizing that the coronavirus pandemic is no time for business as usual. The Food and Drug Administration, in particular, seems to have surgically removed some of the red tape from its process.
On Friday, the FDA announced it will be permitting emergency use of a new drug, remdesivir, which has shown promise in shortening the time COVID-19 patients need to recover from the potentially deadly disease.
Remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences, was tested in a study involving 1,063 patients. It shortened the time needed to recover from the coronavirus by an average of 31 percent. On average, COVID-19 sufferers treated with remdesivir were able to leave the hospital in 11 days. Patients in the control group, which did not receive the drug, required an average of 15 days.
Gilead, incidentally, planned to donate its stock of remdesivir and put production in high gear to make more available.
One need not by a scientist to recognize the potential value of remdesivir - or to wonder how many lives it might have saved if it had been available sooner.
That has been a perennial complaint about the FDA: the time needed to gain federal approval for use of new drugs. The COVID-19 tragedy ought to prompt both the FDA and Congress to take a look at that question.
It also should spur all concerned to eliminate obstacles in the way of developing, producing and distributing a vaccine against COVID-19.
It needs to be remembered, after all, that neither viruses nor bacteria have any respect at all for a bureaucracy.
Online: https://bit.ly/2WvHHG8
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Prison COVID outbreak aided by crowding
The Columbus Dispatch
May 3
For all that Ohio has done right in slowing the spread of the coronavirus and cases of COVID-19, the wildfire of contagion in at least two state prisons must be viewed as a failure.
State officials bear direct responsibility for the well-being of people confined in state institutions, and prisons also offer more ability than in any other setting to control people’s behavior. Yet at the Marion Correctional Institution, more than 80%, or 2,011 of the 2,500 inmates there, plus 154 employees have tested positive for the virus as of April 21, making it the hottest “hot spot” for coronavirus in the nation.
And on that same date another Ohio prison, The Pickaway Correctional Institution in Orient, was second in the nation, with 1,536 inmates and 73 guards infected.
Ohio hasn’t necessarily done a worse job than other states in protecting prison inmates and employees; those high numbers were posted after the state, responding to the outbreak, tested every inmate in both facilities – something few other states had done at the time.
Regardless, the outbreaks, with infection rates far higher than among the general public, show that state officials have not properly protected state employees or inmates, who are powerless to protect themselves. As of Wednesday, at least 29 Ohio prison inmates and two employees had died of COVID-19.
When state officials analyze and evaluate Ohio’s coronavirus experience, they should pay special attention to what happened (or didn’t happen) in the prison system, to provide for accountability and to allow better preparation in the future.
Most important, they should recognize this tragedy as more proof of the need to reform criminal sentencing so that Ohio’s prisons aren’t so unnecessarily full in the first place.
To be fair, prisons aren’t designed for social distancing. Low-to-medium-security facilities such as Marion and Pickaway in particular, tend to feature dormitory-like setups that put inmates in close proximity.
Still, there remains room for improvement in managing the current crisis. Guards have complained of not being issued proper facemasks to keep from spreading the virus.
Gov. Mike DeWine has ordered some nonviolent, low-risk inmates near the end of their sentences to be released early, but the numbers so far have been too low to make a meaningful difference in a prison system that was built for 30,000 prisoners but is holding 49,000.
As with so many aspects of managing this public-health crisis, DeWine has a fine line to tread in considering early releases. Given the realities of prison, a substantial reduction in numbers may be the only way to ensure that inmates can stay 6 feet from each other. Other means of separation being tried, such as closing recreation rooms and canceling outdoor time, are likely to increase tension in an already-volatile environment.
But many Ohioans would object to wholesale get-out-of-jail-free orders, and DeWine’s background as a county prosecutor and state attorney general might make such a decision a tough sell for himself, not to mention others in the justice system.
At the Federal Correctional Institution in Elkton, a hard-hit prison in northeastern Ohio, a federal judge on April 22 ordered officials to identify “medically vulnerable” inmates and transfer them somewhere else. As of that date, 60 inmates had tested positive for coronavirus and six had died. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Federal officials counted more than 800 of Elkton’s 2,400 inmates who would be eligible for release under the judge’s order, but on Monday a Cleveland-based federal district attorney appealed the order in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that inmates there are adequately protected. That claim came the day after a seventh Elkton inmate died.
Clearly, both state and federal prisoners and those who work around them are more vulnerable to the coronavirus than the general public. We hope the ACLU prevails in the Elkton suit, and we urge DeWine to consider releasing more of the thousands of inmates whose offenses were nonviolent, who have served substantial parts of their sentences and whose behavior in prison has been constructive.
Beyond these immediate life-and-death concerns, this dark chapter in Ohio’s prisons should provide a solid boost those advocates who have been pushing for more than a year for laws that could make Ohio’s prisons far less crowded and, most important, help thousands of Ohioans build better lives.
House Bill 1, passed by the House in June, would expand the use of interventions instead of conviction for nonviolent offenders struggling with addiction or mental illness. It was introduced in the Senate immediately but has languished in the Senate Justice Committee since September.
Meanwhile, Senate Bill 3, which would reduce most low-level drug offenses to misdemeanors, has been parked in the same committee since its introduction in February 2019.
Failing to move this much-needed, smart-on-crime legislation represents a promise broken by lawmakers, who pledged to enact drug-sentencing reform when they opposed a 2018 state ballot issue that would have addressed the same problems. Voters overwhelmingly rejected Issue 1.
States have a moral obligation to guard the physical safety of prison inmates. Ohio can start doing that – and make thousands of lives better – by not putting so many people in prison who don’t belong there.
Online: https://bit.ly/3c2xMi4
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Legacy of May 4 lives on - and always will
Akron Beacon Journal
May 2
“The past,” wrote William Faulkner, “is never dead. It’s not even past.”
In Northeast Ohio, we know the haunting truth of that observation.
It has been 50 years since May 4, 1970, when four unarmed college students were shot and killed and nine others wounded by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State University. And yet the same familiar fault lines that led up to that tragedy remain, barely concealed beneath society’s ever-bubbling surface.
Student protests or an affront to law and order?
Civil unrest or civil disobedience?
Free speech or treason?
War or peace?
We didn’t agree then and we still don’t. Perhaps we never will. The issues that threatened to tear our country apart during the Vietnam War era are still with us. In some ways, we seem even more divided today as a society than we were then, and it doesn’t take much to reveal the gulf that remains between us. The mere announcement in February of actor Jane Fonda - “Hanoi Jane” or human rights activist? - as a keynote speaker for Kent State’s planned commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the tragedy immediately and predictably served to separate us into our respective tribes.
What has changed, thankfully, are some of the conditions in 1970 that set the stage for the confrontation that cost KSU students William Schroeder, Sandy Scheuer, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller their lives.
That starts with how universities and communities interact, both with each other and with students.
In direct response to the Kent State shooting, the Ohio General Assembly passed the campus disruption law in June 1970. Known as Ohio House Bill 1219, it permits universities to remove any student, faculty or staff member to maintain “law and order.” It gives schools the authority to “limit access to campuses, impose curfews and suspend or expel students who violate rules.”
Police departments have also changed how they interact with students.
“Police started doing a lot more training, interpersonal relationship training,” said Thomas Hodson, who was an associate editor at Ohio University’s student newspaper in May 1970 and is now a professor of communication at the school’s Scripps College of Communication.
The attitude from society at large toward soldiers returning from war has changed as well, and for the better. Today, members of the U.S. military are much more likely to encounter a “thank you for your service” than they are an expression of disrespect or derision.
After some initial missteps, Kent State, too, has come to embrace the opportunity to use the tragic events of that spring day in 1970 to promote healing and growth.
“Kent State has progressed from trying to forget the shootings to owning that horrific moment - and honoring the whole spectrum of emotions they inspire,” then-university President Beverly Warren said in a speech at the Chautauqua Institution in the summer of 2018.
The school, she said, will use the “lessons of 50 years to convene people, heal conflict and create a more inclusive, more peaceful future.”
That can and should be the enduring legacy of May 4. That the planned commemoration of its 50th anniversary will now be virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic should not matter. The challenge before us this year and every year remains the same.
We must forge ahead into a common future - even if it means dragging our fractured past along with us.
Online: https://bit.ly/35HxcE9
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Battling projections
Toledo Blade
May 4
The possibility of ongoing social distancing and limited business openings over the next several weeks can be depressing enough for many, but there are some other projections that paint an even bleaker picture of the months ahead.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health used what’s known about the novel coronavirus and other coronaviruses to create scenarios of the current pandemic, and the results were startling: possible social distancing, school closures, and stay-at-home orders until 2022.
It’s hard to imagine the kinds of social, emotional, and economic distress people would have to endure to go another two years under current conditions.
The researchers also noted that “predicting an end to the pandemic in the summer … is not consistent with what we know.”
That gloomy outlook was compounded by a warning from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that “the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through” and that medical professionals will likely find themselves dealing with both the coronavirus and seasonal flu cases at the same time.
The uncertainty of when the coronavirus pandemic might subside continues to produce anxiety worldwide, but the good news is that measures now in place have at least slowed the spread and given researchers what they need most - time.
Time to develop more efficient and quicker testing methods to identify those infected and mass produce those tests. Time to determine if those who survived infection could now be immune. Time, most of all, to develop a vaccine that would put an end to this terrible, invisible threat.
While governors in several states are eager to reopen businesses in the next few weeks, many more are taking a more cautious and deliberate approach. And an overwhelming number of Americans remain in favor of the containment efforts now in place.
A survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 61 percent of Americans felt the actions taken to slow the spread of infections were the right decisions. Only 12 percent of those surveyed said the measures where they live went too far.
The best medical minds in the world continue to work on solutions to this pandemic, and there are glimmers of hope. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved a test that would allow people to collect samples using an at-home test kit that could be mailed to a lab for testing.
That could increase testing by millions of people and provide the data so desperately needed.
An experimental drug, remdesivir, has proved effective in shortening the time it takes patients to recover and could lead to the development of other treatments.
The way to alter those bleak projections is to continue social distancing and limited contact, and to put our trust and faith in the world’s medical research teams.
Online: https://bit.ly/3dsEjmz
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DeWine should have held firm on mask mandate; now it’s up to us
The Cincinnati Enquirer
April 29
Ohioans are being asked to do the hardest thing since the first cases of novel coronavirus were reported in the state: re-engage with people with the threat of getting sick or worse. Gov. Mike DeWine unveiled his plan on Monday for how to carefully reopen the state’s economy starting on Friday. It is a measured and reasonable approach that gets some people back to work and tries to protect residents as much as possible.
Businesses will open in phases, starting on Friday with medical and health care providers, followed by manufacturing, distribution, construction and office work on Monday, and then retail on May 12. Dine-in restaurants, bars, daycares, barbershops and salons will remain closed for the foreseeable future. And the ban on large gatherings or events remains in effect.
Some operators and GOP lawmakers have complained about the unfairness of the governor’s staggered approach in allowing businesses to open, arguing all businesses should open at the same time. But the gradual roll out is prudent and gives the state time to monitor whether the reopening results in any sudden flare ups in COVID-19 cases. It also helps that the openings for businesses in phase one are separated by a matter of days not weeks.
DeWine’s plan also lays out strict cleaning and hygiene guidelines for each business, such as:
All employees must wear masks.
Daily self-evaluations of employees’ health.
Reducing occupancy to 50% of the fire marshal’s limit.
Regular cleaning of surfaces.
Maintaining at least six feet between workers.
DeWine had originally ordered that customers, too, had to wear masks when patronizing a business, but backed off that requirement Tuesday after hearing from some constituents who found the mandate “offensive.” In changing it to a recommendation, the governor is placing his trust in Ohioans to keep doing the right thing.
It shouldn’t take a government mandate for us to do the right thing and protect one another. So even though DeWine should have stood firm, his message has not changed. If you go out, wear a mask. Protect yourself and others. And for those who say government has overstepped, your friends, neighbors, co-workers and fellow consumers are trusting you to do the right thing. Here’s your opportunity.
More: Poll: If businesses require you to wear a face mask, are you more or less likely to enter?
Plans to ramp up COVID-19 testing to more than 22,000 tests per day by the end of May are imperative and encouraging, as is the plan to have 1,750 trained workers by June 1 conducting contact tracing of positive cases of the virus. DeWine has to keep the pressure on the federal government to provide more assistance in delivering personal protective equipment to our hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities. Ohio must be prepared to protect our medical professionals and first responders in the event reopening businesses sparks a second wave of infections.
While a few more weeks of Ohio trending down in the number of cases would have been ideal, DeWine can be commended for piecing together a competent compromise. He has let science and data guide him and has listened to a wide array of opinions from health experts to business professionals to everyday citizens. There will be critics who say DeWine shouldn’t have opened nonessential businesses at all, and those who say he didn’t open enough. But the governor said he believes he’s found the “sweet spot.”
“The spot most likely to cause less damage. The spot most likely to do good,” he said.
DeWine is right that no matter what decision he made there was going to be risk. There is risk in doing nothing. There is still risk even if Ohio does this reopening right. It is indeed a scary process, especially for members of more vulnerable populations.
Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said on Monday that we’ve learned a lot about the coronavirus since March. But Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton also reminded us that there is still much that we do not know about the virus. It remains highly contagious, potentially deadly, and perhaps most sobering, will likely be with us for some time to come.
DeWine should keep pushing ahead and be more aggressive if infection rates hold steady or decline. He is trusting each of us to use common sense and make rational decisions as we reconnect. Let’s not make him regret that choice.
Online: https://bit.ly/3b4IQKj
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