Ohio GOP Gov. Mike DeWine conceded Sunday there’s “a risk” involved for the state in both reopening local businesses or continuing a lockdown to deal with the coronavirus crisis.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” DeWine said, nevertheless, getting the economy back on track is “necessary.”
"It's really a risk no matter what we do,” he said. “It’s a risk if we don’t do anything, it’s a risk if we do this. What we have done is come up with best practices for businesses to reopen.”
“We've been hit very hard,” DeWine added.
“We've had over a million people apply for unemployment. So we're no different than most other states. I mean we've been hit exceedingly hard. And again, as we look to come back carefully, it's not so much about at this point orders that I issue or my health director issues, it's really about what people do and I emphasize that time and time again.”
DeWine said he thinks Ohio is at "a plateau" with its outbreak, though he concedes that cases are "fluctuating"
“I look at kind of a 21-day roll,” he said. “We're really at a plateau with hospitalizations, we're at a plateau with deaths, we're at a plateau in regard to new cases so they do go up and down. We wish we were going down. We're not.”
DeWine pushed back hard at the idea that a state legislature might move to curb the governor’s executive powers to order a lockdown amid the outbreak.
“I've made clear to the legislature that if that reached us, and I don’t think it will, but I would veto that,” he said. “I understand that people are anxious to get back, that has people hurting, I mean we can't underestimate the businesses that are suffering, we can't underestimate the workers who don't have jobs, so that’s why we have to move forward... But we have to move forward very, very carefully."
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