LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Since 2004

Tag: stay-at-home order

  • Trump swipe at DeWine follows year of campaign support, and COVID-19 praise

    Trump swipe at DeWine follows year of campaign support, and COVID-19 praise

    President Donald Trump meeting with governors, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

    By Tyler Buchanan

    A year of Gov. Mike DeWine defending the president’s pandemic response and supporting his reelection effort was undone by a brief acknowledgment of reality on cable TV.

    To President Donald Trump, one comment is all it takes for someone to go from political ally to persona non grata.

    On Sunday, DeWine said on CNN that Trump has a right to legally challenge the 2020 election result, but should begin working toward a transition for President-elect Joe Biden. That clip was aired Monday morning on Fox News, a network Trump frequently watches at the White House, leading the president to target DeWine’s own reelection hopes in 2022:

    This tweet to the president’s 89 million followers bookends a year in which DeWine has consistently praised Trump and frequently dodged questions related to the president’s handling of the pandemic.

    DeWine’s office issued this statement in response to the president’s tweet: “I have always had a great working relationship with the President. I am proud to have served as President Trump’s Campaign Co-Chairman in Ohio where we won by the largest margin of any swing state in the country. And I intend to run a winning campaign for governor in 2022.”

    DeWine served as an honorary co-chair to Trump’s campaign in Ohio and recorded a video in support of Trump for the 2020 Republican National Convention. His lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, spoke at a Trump rally in September in favor of the president’s reelection — though the crowd of Trump supporters booed Husted for promoting mask-wearing to prevent COVID-19 spread. 

    While DeWine has emphasized the need for masks and social distancing, Trump has often undercut this public health message by hosting large campaign rallies and downplaying the effectiveness of face coverings.

    DeWine has sidestepped questions from reporters about these contradicting messages, instead choosing to praise the White House for its conference calls with governors and for its work in helping develop a vaccine. 

    The Trump tweet came anyway. 

    The president’s suggestion of a Republican primary comes as DeWine faces increasingly sharp attacks from seemingly all sides regarding his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Democratic leaders, who have generally been supportive of the Republican governor and the Ohio Department of Health, want him to take more aggressive steps to slow the spread as Ohio sees record numbers of infections and hospitalizations.

    Republican legislators have dialed up their own criticism of their party’s leader, insisting DeWine should refrain from issuing any further health orders such as business shutdowns.

    DeWine earned very high marks from the general public early in the pandemic for his aggressive response in partnership with then-Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton. That support led to widespread cooperation in the early weeks as the two enacted business closures and a stay-at-home order.

    Support for DeWine has gradually waned in the months since, though a Great Lakes poll in September found a majority of Ohioans still viewed DeWine’s coronavirus response favorably.

    Hours after Trump’s tweet, DeWine did receive a compliment from President-elect Joe Biden at a Monday afternoon press conference. Biden referred to DeWine as a leader in having “stepped up” to issue a mask mandate in Ohio.

    Outside of the electoral ramifications of Trump’s tweet, the public sentiment over the Ohio pandemic approach may impact DeWine’s ability to amass future cooperation for any health orders still to come.

    DeWine has hinted that orders pertaining to bars, restaurants and social gatherings could come as soon as this week. 

    The governor spent early Monday in West Virginia speaking to TV stations which broadcast to the southern and eastern portions of Ohio. DeWine has offered region-specific messages to Ohioans about the virus spike and how residents can slow the spread in their areas.

    With this year’s election now over, some Ohio Republicans have begun turning their attention to 2022. Among them is Jim Renacci, a former Congressman from Medina County and fervent Trump supporter who ran for governor against DeWine in 2017. Renacci quit the Republican primary to instead campaign for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown, who defeated Renacci in the 2018 General Election.

    State Rep. Jena Powell, R-Arcanum, has offered a similar view.

    “The solution today is taking away (DeWine’s) emergency powers,” Powell wrote on Facebook after the governor’s statewide address on Nov. 11. “The solution in two years is to not re-elect Mike DeWine.”

    Powell shared Trump’s tweet in agreement.

    “Even President Donald J. Trump knows Governor Mike DeWine is doing a terrible job,” she posted. “Ohio needs conservative leadership that actually represent the people first.”

    Some Ohio Democrats see the Trump tweet as a political lesson.

    U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, is another Republican facing reelection in 2022. He has not yet acknowledged the presidential election result.

  • How an Ohio state senator and 33 family members caught COVID-19

    How an Ohio state senator and 33 family members caught COVID-19

    Senator Tina Maharath (Ohio Senate photo)
    By Jake Zuckerman at the Ohio Capital Journal

    Jake ZuckermanJake Zuckerman is a statehouse reporter. He spent three years chronicling the West Virginia Legislature for The Charleston Gazette-Mail after covering cops and courts for The Northern Virginia Daily.

    It started with a funeral.

    Tina Maharath, a Democratic state senator from Canal Winchester, attended a wake Aug. 9 after her brother-in-law’s funeral, who died of non-COVID-19 illness.

    Two of his family members, who Maharath said tested positive for COVID-19, came to the wake. Maharath described them as skeptical of the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “Slowly, one by one, we started getting the phone calls from each one of our family members,” she said in an interview.

    Maharath comes from a big family — common, she said, among Laotians. Her husband has 19 siblings, she has 16. The new coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, left from the wake to invade 11 different family households, infecting 33 family members including a 9-month-old baby.

    As of Thursday, two have died: Maharath’s 44-year-old sister-in-law, who had been battling brain cancer for a year, and her sister-in-law’s father-in-law.

    Five family members were hospitalized, including one who Maharath said is likely to die soon from COVID-19. The five people hospitalized are between 34- and 76-years old. They were hospitalized anywhere from two to six weeks. Mahrath’s sister-in-law was ventilated for three weeks.

    All five had underlying health conditions like asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes, all common conditions in Ohio.

    The familial outbreak, Maharath said, is hopefully over. But uncertainty over longevity of symptoms or long term damage is frightening.

    “We’re concerned because of the five people who were hospitalized, they still have lingering symptoms too, and another sister-in-law who was pregnant, she has lingering symptoms too,” Maharath said. “I don’t have underlying conditions, I’m not pregnant. So why do I have symptoms?”

    Patient groups, calling themselves “long haulers,” have insisted they’ve been experiencing COVID-19 symptoms for month. The CDC has found COVID-19 can result in prolonged illness, even among younger and healthier adults.

    Six weeks out from the positive test result, Maharath said she still feels COVID-19’s symptoms. She said she feels dehydrated, experiences coughing spells, and headaches.

    Her lungs, she said, take most the heat.

    “I just feel weak,” she said. “My lungs feel like something is just punching them. Randomly, it feels like something is just stabbing my lungs.”

    Nearly 148,000 Ohioans have contracted COVID-19 according to state data, which officials believe to be an undercount. At least 4,715 have died.

    Maharath’s diagnosis drew headlines in August. On Wednesday, however, Maharath shared the story of the outbreak through her family in a floor speech opposing Senate Bill 311.

    The legislation, which Senate Republicans passed, would forbid the Ohio Department of Health from issuing anything like the stay-at-home order it issued in March, which closed “non-essential” businesses in an effort to slow the spread of the recently-detected coronavirus.

    It would also allow lawmakers — who have repeatedly expressed skepticism about the virus, ODH’s data tracking the virus, and non-pharmaceutical interventions to control the virus like masks and social distancing — to rescind ODH orders.

    However, a COVID-19 diagnosis did not prove to be a proxy vote against the legislation.

    Sen. Bob Peterson, R-Washington C.H., who contracted the disease earlier this month, voted in favor.

    Sen. Frank Hoagland, R-Adena, did as well. He contracted a mild case of the disease in August. According to a Herald Star report, Hoagland’s wife was hospitalized with the disease as well. Both his wife’s parents reportedly died from COVID-19.

    With what they hope to be the worst of the outbreak behind them, Maharath said her family is planning funerals for the deceased. They plan stricter social distancing and mask requirements.

    Maharath said she’s not planning to attend.