WashPost article on Ohio--more national praise for the state

[Maeve]

Last edited Fri Apr 10, 2020, 09:32 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/did-ohio-get-it-right-early-intervention-preparation-for-pandemic-may-pay-off/2020/04/09/7570bfea-7a4f-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html

On Feb.?26, two days before President Trump called the coronavirus outbreak the Democratic Party’s “new hoax,” the Cleveland Clinic alerted the public that it was prepared to quickly open 1,000 additional hospital beds should the need arise.

On March?4, the day Trump boasted that “we have a very small number” of infected people in the United States, Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, shut down a weekend fitness expo expected to draw 60,000 people a day to a Columbus convention center. There were no identified coronavirus cases in the state at the time.

Now, Ohio may be realizing the benefits of early intervention in the pandemic by its government and medical community. With about 5,100 covid-19 cases, it has fewer than a third the number of people with the novel coronavirus than in three comparably sized states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois. And Ohio has just a small fraction of the deaths reported in those states.

Sorry, the article is behind a paywall--another excerpt is provided below

[hlthe2b]

1. Mike Dewine deserves some credit for this (though not for decades of RW policy)

I guess he had a damned hard time ignoring what Cleveland Clinic and others were telling him ahead of time.

[gibraltar72]

2. It is striking. I think my Governor has done a great job.

My county has 66 cases and 6 deaths and is a hot spot, Adjoining Ohio county 1 case. I applaud Mike Dewine for that. My beef with him and other Republican Governors is when do you tell the truth and fight for the nation. They will disagree with Trump on certain things, but they will not tell what he is actually doing. That would change a lot.

[Maeve]

3. I have never supported DeWine before (and would NOT vote for him EVER)

But he defers to Dr Acton and has flattened the curve here, so points for that. Even if the primary was a bit of a cluster****, it looks to come out all right (and some of that blame goes to the legislature).

[Ohiogal]

4. This.

(and WaPo would not let me read the article)

[Maeve]

5. Then a bit more

With the pandemic still spreading and case counts rising, it’s too early for certainty on whether Ohio’s actions have spared it the worst of the virus’s impact. Experts caution that infectious disease outbreaks never move smoothly through a population. They arise opportunistically: A party here or church service there can produce an explosion of infections that quickly puts public health officials behind the disease curve. There is no way to account for luck, good or bad.

But an early look at Ohio’s preparations and decision-making shows they reflect textbook recommendations for the way to handle an outbreak. Identify it early. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. Move swiftly because disease expansion will be exponential, not linear. In the absence of testing, assume the virus is spreading through the community. Communicate with the public clearly, and keep the message consistent.

“It seems we have gotten ahead of it,” said Tomislav Mihaljevic, chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the top medical systems in the country. “Here in Ohio, we may well be in a position of not a high, high curve of patients but more of a swell.”

Through Thursday’s report, Ohio had 5,148 positive cases and 193 deaths from covid-19, according to the COVID Tracking Project, a small group of journalists and others amassing data from public sources. The state had performed more than 53,000 tests.

[Ohiogal]

6. Thank you, Maeve.