(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] Cleveland has its moment in the national spotlight, as ESPN broadcast the NFL draft, live.

Pretty cool.

Also cool, big business for bars, restaurants, and hotels and the feeling that we're turning the corner on the pandemic.

This made possible in part because COVID-19 case rates are dropping.

Health experts say thanks to vaccinations, social distancing, and other protocols.

There's not so good news statewide though.

Ohio is losing cloud in Congress, as the census count means we drop a house seat.

Ideas, is next.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Deep Voiced Narrator] Next brought to you by Westfield.

Offering insurance to protect what's yours.

Grow your business and achieve your dreams.

(gentle upbeat music) (dramatic upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

The NFL draft arrived in Cleveland in the midst of football weather.

Cold and rainy, and the same week where we hit sunny and 80 degrees.

Welcome to Cleveland indeed.

It's really not about the peaks or the precipitation though, for Cleveland and its boosters, it's about the glamor shots.

Even the soggy ones, in the push to promote Cleveland as a destination.

The draft, which continues through Saturday is seen as a turning point in this pandemic.

Hotels, bars and restaurants are looking to jumpstart, what they hope will be a long summer season of sales.

As more people are vaccinated and restrictions are loosened.

The latest pandemic numbers show COVID-19 cases, are moving downward again, 155.6 cases per 100,000 residents.

And 45 Ohio's 88 counties are at red alert level.

The lowest number in months.

Meanwhile, the US Census this week, released numbers showing Ohio grew in population but way too slowly compared to Southern and Western States.

So, we're losing another seat in Congress.

A trend with every census, since the 1970s.

Joining me to discuss these stories and more, Ideastream health reporter, Lisa Ryan, Statehouse News Bureau chief, Karen Kasler and WKSU reporter Kabir Bhatia.

Let's get ready to round table.

I walked around downtown and there were lines at a lot of the bars at West Third and West Sixth street.

Clearly people are ready to get back out.

- Yeah, I was seeing the same thing.

I saw, a lot of traffic as I drove in yesterday, and a lot of people out walking around, going out to bars and restaurants, as you're saying.

I even saw it outside of Downtown Cleveland.

I stopped by a pizza shop on my way home and saw a lot of people out watching the draft.

And so I think that the impact might be felt all throughout Cleveland.

It's hard to say exactly what the economic impact will be, since as mentioned, it is scaled back, but I think that the psychological impact on the city of just having things feel slightly more normal.

Now people get out.

I think that is a really great feeling actually.

- And when you think about the draft that was held in Nashville two years ago, so the last normal draft 100s of 1000s of people each day, coming out.

We didn't have those kinds of numbers.

It was less than those massive numbers, which Cleveland had hoped to have.

But still a much bigger thing in Cleveland than we've seen in more than a year.

- Obviously when they were planning for this, they were hoping that we weren't in a pandemic and that we would see those Nashville numbers.

They're estimating instead about 1/2 that, about 50,000 people per day will be in Downtown Cleveland throughout the draft.

But because there has been a pandemic, I could see this actually having an even greater impact.

I mean, think of all the cities that aren't able to have all these big events and you think of the cities that have.

You think of Tampa hosted the Super Bowl, you think of Indianapolis and the NCAA tournament.

So you're looking at all those cities and the economic impact at a time when people really aren't going out.

So I really think that the economic impact and just the impact in general might be even bigger, because of that.

- Kabir, I know what people like you and me think when we watch these things, we're from here and so we kind of get that postcard proud moment when we see the skyline.

And as I mentioned, you couldn't see it until later in the draft, but when you did, "Man, it's beautiful!"

"Boy we clean up well!"

But you'll wonder what people who are outside our region think about, and it doesn't matter.

And the people at destination Cleveland obviously think that it does.

They're seeing this as a real chance to market the city.

- They put together that TV spot.

Yeah, to market the city that ran during the draft.

And of course ESPN had shots of the city.

Not very many, most of the show was in that sort of the man-cave set.

(Mike laughing) Whenever I (mumbles) they were...

It was like-- - The man cave.

- It was like if they...

The Dick Cavett Show in a basement in Westlake.

(participants laughing) That's what it looked like.

But the beauty shots were great.

And then the destination Cleveland spot was beautifully produced.

I think that they had the shots of course of the script Cleveland and the city itself and everything.

At this point I think that, that's helping to resell us, maybe.

And I'm wondering though what the next step is.

I mean, affordable housing and a lake great things that we have.

I don't know how you put those into a spot and the spot itself, I think gave people a great impression of the city, but not really a, "Should I move there?"

This is what Cleveland's about.

And I'm wondering if maybe that'll unfold more over the next two days of the draft.

- I can tell you one person based on a conversation I had before this show where the view of the city and its beauty really made a sale.

And that's Karen Kasler.

Who is all the way down in Columbus but I understand is going to be packing up and heading up here tomorrow because you just can't-- - I can't resist - You can't not be a part of it.

- I can't not.

I mean, the shots that they were showing were just so beautiful and the city looks so great.

Now, of course, I'm one of these people that will take any excuse to come to Cleveland.

But I mean, I think it looks so terrific, and, this comes just five years, four and a 1/2 years after the 2016 Republican National Convention that Cleveland got rave reviews for, how it performed during that.

And I hope that these two events are showing the world essentially, that Cleveland does know how to do these big events.

That even in a challenging situation like this pandemic the city can actually put something together that not only works, but also looks great.

And so it's just exciting to watch from here and see how well everything looks and how everything seems to be performing exactly as, I think everybody was hoping it would.

- But we are in a pandemic.

And we do have 10s of 1000s of people that are congregating Downtown.

So, Lisa, what do you know about the protocols that are still in place, how those were adhered to, whether inside the venue or inside individual restaurants and bars?

- Well, Ideastream's Glenn Forbes was live at FirstEnergy Stadium during all things considered yesterday.

And he was walking around seeing people wearing masks.

In general, it seems like the area around the draft was kept pretty safe.

It was primarily outside, people were wearing masks.

So it seemed pretty okay.

I worry though.

I really do about the bars and restaurants.

I didn't really go into one but just seeing them from the outside, it didn't look there was a whole lot of social distancing.

Now, it's hard to tell sometimes just from the outside looking in because you never know how people are portioned off with the tables and that sort of thing, but I do worry a little bit as a health reporter that we could potentially see some spread if people aren't vaccinated and they're gathering people coming in from all over the country for this as well and potentially spreading it that way.

- Glenn Forbes did go and talk to the general manager of Masthead Brewery and Restaurant in Cleveland, and it was interesting 'cause the general manager there said on a normal time, we would...

The place will be packed.

And there would be a lot of people that don't even know each other.

There are these long picnic tables that you can share.

But they can't do that.

You have to be your party per picnic table, everyone has to be seated, that's still a requirement in restaurants in Ohio.

Is that right Karen?

That your bars-- - Yes, I mean, the restrictions in bars and restaurants if you're... You have to stay seated, if you're not seated, you have to wear a mask, like you're going to the restroom or whatever.

And, you're supposed to stay.

The state has never put a capacity limit, like 25%, 50% or whatever.

It's just said, that everybody has to be socially distanced in a bar or restaurant.

So those restrictions are still out there.

- Kabir, one of the things though is that this was on the Lakefront and the Lakefront is this big asset for Cleveland which almost everyone would agree is underutilized.

And isn't quite as prominent and is displayed as perhaps it should be.

In fact, they put this up in some basically blank space on the Lakefront.

There has been some discussion from the owners of the Browns as well that they hope that this event kind of helps with that linkage and maybe does a little better job, especially in that area of enhancing the lakefront.

- The Haslams were very complimentary to everyone for getting the draft here and what not.

But within that, they mentioned that having the stadium right there in the Lakefront is great but there are the parking issues, there's ingress and egress logistics.

And he kind of hinted, I'm hoping that we have more of a connection to Downtown in the future.

Let's work on that so that maybe we can alleviate some of these things.

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize he's referring to the land bridge which we thought was going to happen then it didn't then pause now they're discussing it again.

There's talk of whether it's going to tie in with the existing Amtrak Depot or if they're going to move the Amtrak Depot to make space for for the land bridge.

So I think he's really bullish on city leaders getting behind that.

Considering we're in a mayoral election season.

I don't know how quickly that'll be discussed.

And, if the new mayor, whoever it may be, or if mayor Jackson runs again, somehow, that what kind of priority it will be for them to have a land bridge.

Because we've all been downtown on a Sunday, we've seen just the hordes of people streaming downtown from either side of the stadium.

And a land bridge, I think would make that a lot easier than the current thing where you go behind this building and then there's a retaining wall and you go under it.

So I think the Haslams were saying, let's do this land bridge and let's get the Lakefront to be more than the rock hall, the science museum and the stadium.

(dramatic upbeat music) - With vaccination, social distancing and other protocols, we are able to have a scaled down draft.

Last year's was confined entirely to the virtual world.

After cases began to rise, over the last few weeks, they now are trending in the right direction.

Ohio's average for COVID 19 cases per 100,000 residents, is now just under 156.

It was 186 a week ago.

Governor Dewine was at Cleveland State University this week and urged Ohioans to keep up the fight.

- We're not in a bad shape, we're in good shape but we gotta finish the job.

We are like the Browns and we're driving against the Steelers and we're down to the five yard line.

And we can't walk off the field.

- It's nice that we now have that as an analogy because I don't know, maybe a couple of years ago it'd be and then we fumble, but no, we're driving down the field against the Steelers.

(participant chuckling) But his point being Karen, that we...

Things are getting a little better.

And it's funny, we're on a bit of a roller coaster in this show because I can look at each week and the headlines that we talk about.

"Hey things are getting better.

"We're down to 155 cases."

"Hey, things are getting worse.

"We're up to 200 cases."

Now, least it's trending in the right direction.

- With this particular measure of cases versus 100,000 residents, absolutely.

It's still though three times higher than the level that Governor Mike Dewine says he wants the state to achieve for two weeks before he would lift the mass mandates and other restrictions.

So it is moving in the right direction.

We've had three weeks of drops in that key metric there and also there have...

The level of confirmed cases has still been below about 1500 for the last couple of weeks now.

So all these things are potentially good.

Dewine says that this is about people sticking with the mandates and sticking with masks and also getting vaccines.

But he's got a problem coming up and that is the number of people who have...

The percentage of people who started the vaccine and the percentage of people who have completed the vaccine.

Those two graphs are starting to come together.

Cause we used to have about a 20 percentage point gap between the two, because a lot of people had started their first dose and then people who were completing it were behind them.

Now those two (mumbles) starting to come together because people just aren't going out there and getting that first shot.

And that's a real concern.

Now, when you look at the state's overall numbers, it calculates it by total population based on the US Census, so it doesn't break out people who are not vaccine eligible.

So anybody under 16, is still included in that overall number.

So when you do the math on that, the state is about at 50% that have had at least their first shot.

which is great news, but how do you get over that 50% mark?

And that's the challenge I think Dewine has right now.

And he's got some real challenges in some rural parts of Ohio.

I mean, Anna Huntsman reported earlier this week on Holmes County and the vaccine levels there, of course with the Amish population there it's super low.

But there are other parts of the state where the vaccine percentage, the percentage of people in the population who've not... Who have started their vaccine is really low as well.

And so he's got a real issue in trying to reach these people and get those numbers to go up because the goal again is to reach herd immunity.

- So one way to do that might be incentives.

And-- - [Karen] Yeah.

- Lisa in West Virginia, they're offering a 100 bucks bond, a savings bond to people who are under 35 years old who go and get vaccinated.

It sounded to me like, okay, that might work.

Mike Dewine said, "I'm looking at incentives.

"We wanna do anything we possibly can."

But is that something that could be employed in Ohio?

Cash or savings bond for vaccination?

- It seems like governor Dewine is at the very least considering certain incentives.

I don't know if it would be cash or some other way to get people out there.

But when he was asked about that this week did seem like he was at least considering these incentives.

So we'll see.

I mean, that would be really interesting, I think, as the entire country kind of looks to West Virginia, to see if this actually works.

We'll see in the coming weeks, whether or not it does.

- Yeah the governor said directly, when asked about West Virginia, "I'm asking myself that question, asking "my team every single day, what else can we do?"

Karen, what are some other ideas?

What else can be done in order to get those who are in counties, rural counties, as you mentioned, and somewhat put Trump counties into that as well.

And we've seen some studies where places that were more in favor of Donald Trump, in the election are also the ones that are lower on vaccine.

So that's a different population to try to convince, than perhaps a 16 to 35-year-old in an urban area as well.

So are they talking about any possible strategies here?

- Well, when you do overlay the website coronavirus.ohio.gov vaccine website, with results from the 2020 and even the 2016 election, yeah, you've got a lot of commonality there.

And, I think that that's been a concern that especially men who identify as Republicans in that middle, that age group of about 30 to 50, that that's been a group that has been difficult to reach for people who are trying to get folks to go out and get the vaccines.

But I think Dewine is now asking and looking at what businesses are doing.

He noted in the press conference, that businesses have had all sorts of incentives, and he's looking to see how those work, before he goes ahead and starts considering putting state money, into this.

But I think it's really-- - Like a vacation day, or something, you mean.

(Karen chuckling) - Vacation days, there are some businesses that are offering some time off bonuses, even some cash bonuses.

And so he's trying to find some sort of a creative solution to try to get to that 16 to 35-year-old block.

And if you've been watching TV lately, you might've seen some PSA's, that have been out there, trying to really target younger people, who may not have gotten the vaccine and saying, "Go ahead and get it.

"It's available to anybody over 16."

And so, and I'm hearing mixed results.

It depends on, I guess, what part of the state people are from.

Some younger people are telling me that, "Hey, we're all in.

"We wanna do this.

"We wanna get back to normal."

And then other folks are saying, "Why do I need it?

"I'm not sick.

"I'm unlikely to get sick."

And the stories about people, in their second shot especially when they do have reactions, I think if scared some people off.

And there's some evidence that, some people are not going through with their second shot because of concerns about side effects.

And that's a real worry here.

Especially if you have a job where you couldn't take the time off if you had the side effects that I think is really more the worry than just, "I don't want to get sick."

It's, "If I get sick, what gonna be the impact on my job "and on my life here, when "I'm trying to get back to normal?"

- That's a good point.

There's also just the idea of getting the information out there and then getting to the vaccination site.

And Lisa, in Cleveland at the Wolstein center, a mass vaccination site the RTA is now combining... And the county are now combining with the folks that are running this, the Wolstein center to say, "We'll bring people there.

"You'll get a free ride if you need one."

- Yeah actually in Cleveland and Lake County's offering the same thing with Laketran and their public transportation.

But they're actually offering it to any vaccination site.

Obviously the Wolstein center is the big one and that's the mass vaccination site.

But, we're seeing actually, if you are going to any vaccination site and need transportation, you're eligible to get that for free through Cuyahoga County.

- Churches, businesses, community groups and others can call 216-615-6313 to arrange for an RTA bus to take groups of 20 or more, to an appointment at the Wolstein center.

Individuals can call 211, to arrange a free ride.

Clinic is open from eight to seven, seven days a week.

Free parking is available there too, if you end up driving and that's just the Wolstein center.

As you mentioned, there are other sites as well.

And Kabir let's talk about what's being offered then.

At the Wolsteins center it is the Pfizer vaccine switching over from Johnson and Johnson, but we've heard then this week that Johnson and Johnson could be resumed.

And the governor said, that's a possibility too.

So there are some places that will be offering the Johnson and Johnson shot, including in Summit County.

- Yeah, Johnson and Johnson is back in Summit County.

Of course there was that concern about the clotting issue which the studies seem to show the last physician I spoke with, but it was literally one in a million.

Six cases out of about 6.2 million, I think they said that had experienced that.

So Summit County paused it and then they were doing Pfizer.

They actually found demand had gone down.

They were starting to scale back at the mass vaccination site there at the Fairgrounds.

But now they're bringing the Fairground site back.

They're bringing Johnson and Johnson back.

And that of course is only one shot.

And they feel confident that the science is sound and that people can get Johnson and Johnson at the Fairground site.

And there was some annoyance, I think from people when they moved the site to the Fairgrounds from Chapel Hill Mall because Chapel Hill was sold and they're going to redevelop.

There has been a program to get people from Chapel Hill which has more bus access over to the Fairgrounds.

There's been shuttles.

So even that, it's not quite the 211 situation, up close here to the lake, but there is, there are ways to transport people to where they need to be, to be able to get this vaccine - Lisa, the centers for disease control and prevention had announcement this week, a change in policy about whether you need to wear masks outside.

And if you're vaccinated, what exactly they come down with?

- So they're now recommending or saying that anyone who is fully vaccinated, which again is two weeks after your last dose, anyone who is fully vaccinated can now not wear a mask outside unless they're in a large group of strangers.

Honestly, when I read through that, I'm like, wasn't that already kind of what people were doing?

- Yeah, I didn't wear it.

If I'm out for a walk in the Metroparks and I'm by myself, I'm not wearing a mask.

- Now they've always said that if you're by yourself or with members of your own household outside you can, not wear a mask, even if you weren't fully vaccinated.

But now they're saying kind of as long as you're not in a very large close group of people, you can wear, or not wear a mask outside if your fully vaccinated.

So that's kind of the main difference.

Although again, I think people were kind of already doing that.

- And I think there's some changes too about, if you're all fully vaccinated and inside then also not a mask 'cause things are changing.

They're changing slowly.

Any changes in Ohio, Karen specifically about mask mandates or, any of those rules?

- Not yet, but (chuckles) on about June 24th, there's a law that takes effects, that would allow state lawmakers to overturn any of those mask mandates other restrictions.

And unless that law is challenged, lawmakers say that they're going to do that.

And I even talked to, Senate Finance Committee Chair Matt Dolan this week, he was one of the senators who voted against the bill, the final form of the bill that would allow lawmakers to overturn the governor's health orders.

And he says he would not be against overturning those health orders depending on how things are going, in mid June.

So it sure looks like, unless that law is challenged and it's stopped that's going to be the case, that by the middle of June, there won't be any more restrictions such as that.

And I think you're absolutely right though that, some people have, have already kind of decided, to move on from this.

And that's potentially dangerous.

I mean, again, this pandemic's not over.

All you gotta do is look over at India and see what's going on over there.

And the terrible situation they're dealing with there.

But it certainly seems like there's an attitude among people in Ohio and in the United States that we can start moving on and getting back to normal.

And what's really concerning is the number of people who don't want to get the vaccine, but are living life as they did before the pandemic because that's how those variants spread.

(dramatic upbeat music) - Ohio's footprint in Congress will shrink, beginning next year.

The United States Census Bureau this week released the first data from its 2020 survey.

And confirmed that Ohio will lose a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

Going from 16 members to 15.

Our smallest delegation since 1833.

Our congressional clout has been shrinking, since a high of 24 seats in 1973.

Karen, no surprise.

- No, in fact, I just did a search on our website statenews.org and our friend Kyle Kondik, who is now at the university of Virginia at Sabato's Crystal Ball, is from Ohio.

He first predicted this to me in December of 2016.

So this is not a surprise.

And it's not that Ohio's population didn't grow, it did.

Grew by 2.3%.

But the problem was that there were a lot of other states that the population grew faster and Ohio was close.

If we had 437 members of Congress, then Ohio would still have 16 members of Congress but the cutoff is 435, and so we're losing a seat.

And that of course starts the whole process of how do you redraw Ohio's congressional map under new rules that voters approved in 2018 and get rid of one of those districts.

And so there there's a loss, not only of the prestige and the opportunity that 16 members of Congress brings, because you can be on lots of committees, you have more of a voice in Congress, but it also potentially throws this whole situation of the balance between Republicans and Democrats up in the air.

And that's going to be the struggle over the next couple of weeks.

And next week is going to be a key moment in that, because there could be a ballot issue, that could come forward, that voters will have to decide on August that would move some of these map drawing deadlines.

And it... That's about the only way that the map apparently can be drawn according to Republicans who will be doing most drawing.

- That was a Senate President, Matt Huffman, who was talking about that, right?

- Yes.

- And the idea is to have the voters make that decision but, in saying basically with this delay in data, we need that extra time but the Legislative Black Caucus isn't having any of that.

- Right, and Democrats were actually having a call right now, that my colleague Andy Chow was on listening in, about their response to this because they've been saying, "Hey this process, voters approved process "for congressional map drawing in 2018, "a process for drawing the Statehouse "and state Senate seats in 2015."

And we need to stick to that.

And that they're very concerned, about Senate President, Matt Hoffman and his proposal to put this constitutional amendment, on the ballot, because this is all in the constitution.

So the only way to change the constitution is with another constitutional amendment.

Now, Hoffman was involved in the whole process to bring, a new way of drawing maps to voters and get it approved.

But he says right now, because the mappable data won't be available until mid August, there just isn't time to produce maps by September 30th.

Because you have to have public hearings, you have to get minority party buy-in and you have to do all these things.

So he wants to move those dates.

What he doesn't wanna do, is move next year's congressional primary, which is set for May.

And that's really a question here.

If the maps aren't done in the timeframe that's outlined in the constitution, then that potentially throws the date of that primary up for grabs.

And so there's a lot of moving parts here.

And just a little bit of a delay in the data coming from the US Census does make a difference.

And, now the question is, what do you do about it?

- And that's going to wrap up our show.

Coming up Monday on the Sound of Ideas, we'll look at how the service industry is fairing, as businesses reopen.

Some establishments are experiencing staffing troubles.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for watching.

And stay safe.

(gentle upbeat music) (dramatic upbeat music) - [Deep Voiced Narrator] Brought to you by Westfield.

Offering insurance to protect what's yours.

Grow your business and achieve your dreams.