(soft music) - [Announcer] The Cleveland Clinic took the unusual step this week of inviting reporters into its intensive care unit.

What we learned is heartbreaking as COVID-19 cases mount.

The current surge is expected to get worse with the spread of the Omicron variant.

And it's likely that soon in Ohio, people can carry concealed weapons without training or permits.

Ideas is next.

(dramatic music) - Hello, and welcome to Ideas, I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Ideas Stream Public Media went inside the Cleveland Clinics intensive care unit this week and it's full of COVID 19 patients and heartbreak.

Caregivers say, this is the worst it's ever been.

At Akron General Hospital, a refrigerator truck is being used to handle overflow from the morgue.

With the Omicron variant in Ohio, the surge may get even worse.

Unlike last year, state health officials have no intention of issuing new mandates.

And governor DeWine and first lady Fran DeWine are in quarantine after exposure to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

Joining me this week from Idea Stream Public Media, managing producer for health Marlene Harris Taylor from WKSU, news director, Andrew Meyer, and in Columbus Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the head of the Ohio department of health said the state will stress personal responsibility to stem the surge and won't issue additional health orders mandates or other measures that have drawn controversy.

The governor and first lady, as I mentioned, Fran DeWine are in quarantine after exposure to a person who tested positive for COVID-19.

They tested negative for the virus, unlike tons of Cleveland Browns players, including the coach, the starting quarterback and the backup quarterback.

Okay, that's a lot.

- [Marlene] It is.

- And this is just about the holidays 2021.

We're not supposed to be talking about this now, Marlene.

- We're not.

Unfortunately what we're hearing from health officials and Cleveland clinic officials specifically are saying, they're using that word dire a lot, Mike and you know, it's so dire that they took that almost unprecedented step this week of allowing reporters to come into that ICU.

It's not that we don't ask, but they've always, you know, rightly so being concerned about patient privacy, about keeping everybody safe, but they've come to the conclusion that the message just is not getting out to the public of, how terrible things are inside, so they let us in to share.

- I talked with Lisa and Anna after that and it affected them.

- It absolutely did, yeah.

You imagine then about healthcare workers who are doing this every day, they're going in, they're seeing people die, they're trying to take care of them, then they'd go home and make dinner.

- [Marlene] Right.

- I mean, can you imagine that that's a daily experience, the kind of, and that's what the governor is gonna express today is staffing in hospitals.

- I mean, you imagine that at some point people kinda get desensitized, like when you're in a war zone, it's sort of a war zone for them.

But at the same time, there's this deep trauma that comes from seeing this kinda death every day.

And you're right, Lisa and Anna, you know, sometimes people thinks reporters think reporters are unfeeling and uncaring.

They were really, really impacted by what they saw there that day.

- And Andrew, this is not a Cuyahoga County thing.

We mentioned it the entire state, Cuyahoga County is a hotspot right now, but Summit County is not looking good either.

- And one really key indicator to be looking at is ICU capacity, it's kinda mind blowing.

The New York times published an interactive map nationwide earlier in the week that tracked to ICU capacity.

And if you're looking at, a number of hospitals across Northeast, Ohio, starting with the Akron area, they're at 95, 96, 97% capacity.

If you look at UHS facility in Sheldon, they're at a hundred percent capacity when it comes to ICU beds, there there's just no room left.

So, what happens at that point?

- I know somebody who recently went to the hospital for something unrelated to COVID and there, there wasn't a room.

So they basically slid them over against the wall by the nurses station in the bed and husband stood and she ended up being fine, but it was a day at the hospital.

- [Marlene] Wow.

- No place to be.

- Well, one thing they are doing in the Akron area, we reported on this, is that they're shipping patients to other hospitals and other areas that aren't quite as bad as we are right now.

That's one of the things that they set up in Ohio was this system, the zone system.

So that one zone gets really impacted, they can ship people to another zone.

But imagine if you have to have your loved one shipped all the way to Columbus, how are you go visit them?

- It's bad.

They're saying it's gonna get worse and we're talking about being overrun by patients who are dealing with COVID-19.

What about any other health ailments, I mean, we're maxed out for capacity, what happens next?

- I remember in the news meeting earlier this week, you mentioned that Akron General, a Cleveland clinic hospital was getting a morgue truck and I think it just stopped the meeting in its tracks.

And everyone said, wait a minute, what, that's happening?

- It's happening again.

They had to do this at the beginning of the pandemic.

And the morgue truck is able to handle an additional 25 bodies beyond what they're able to deal with within the normal facility there.

But this is not a good sign at this point.

This is a sign that we are stretched beyond capacity.

If you're having to call in extra refrigerated space to store the bodies, it doesn't bode well for what comes next.

- It sure does not.

And you know, I think one of the reasons the governor is calling that press conference this morning is that part of what the story here is that the hospitals have lost staff.

So it's not just that they don't have room for everyone, they don't have enough staff to take care of everyone.

So the number of beds they actually have available is smaller than it was last year.

So that's a big part of the story.

- Karen, the situation we're in now, it rivals last year, but the governor is not handling the messaging any longer.

He's having that press conference today, so maybe that's changing, but the Ohio department of health has kind of taken the lead on it and one of the things that we heard yesterday is, don't worry if it gets more dire, worry, but even if it gets more dire, we're not gonna move in with the kind of measures that we had earlier in the pandemic.

- Well, and the governor can't.

I mean, there was a bill that was passed and took effect in June that said that the governor no longer has the authority through the state legislature to go ahead and do these emergency health orders and mask mandates and lockdowns and that sort of thing.

The legislature now has the authority to override him on these things.

And I spoke to the governor this week for [Indistinct] interview for a TV show, "The State of Ohio."

And I asked him about that, telling him, you know, more than 7,000 people have died of COVID since that law took effect, do you wish you had done more?

He vetoed it, but I asked him, do you wish that you had filed a lawsuit, done something else?

And he said, no, he feels that they took the appropriate action then and now the focus, as you just mentioned, is on getting people to get their boosters.

And the question is, will that be enough, are boosters widely available?

I'm hearing some stories of people saying they're having trouble getting appointments to get those boosters, that the booster clinics, they were hoping that people would be a lot more responsive to boosters and they haven't gone as well.

And so shifting the focus away from people who you're not going to convince to get vaccinated, but at least going back to the people who've gotten vaccinated and getting that extra protection, that's the direction right now.

But do we have the capacity to make that happen and is that what's happening?

That's the real question here.

And you talk about people who were in the hospital.

I mean, I also know somebody who went to the hospital this week and it was the same kind of a situation, it was just kind of luck that this person ended up finding a room after being flown by a helicopter from one part of the state to the other and it still probably released a little bit earlier than expected because of a need for an ICU bed.

I mean, that's where we are right now.

And a year ago, we were hoping with the vaccines, just starting to come out, that we wouldn't be in this place again, and here we are.

- I heard you say Karen, the governor can't issue an order, but I would push back and say, the governor could issue an order and put it in the in the court of the legislature to have to then countermand that.

And you could get to that point where you make a statement, at least in that way, you put an order in place and then, hey legislature, if you wanna undo this, it's on you.

How come that's not happening?

- I think it's pretty clear that they would.

I think it's pretty clear that they, the members of the state legislature feel very strongly, the Republicans in the state legislature feel very strongly that mass mandates lockdowns, these are not things that should be going forward.

I mean, you've got some members of the legislature who have praised actions from other states, including Florida, that the way they handled lockdowns and the way that they've, in some cases banned mass mandates has been the appropriate thing.

And so I think it's pretty clear that this would potentially be a waste of time.

And Dwayne has also said that if he did do those orders and the legislature pulled back, that could lead to some confusion among people about whether they should be doing what they should be doing.

And so he's really focused his message on getting boosters and vaccinating and wearing, I think he's going to talk today about wearing masks indoors, but not a mask mandate.

One thing that's very interesting about this press conference today, it's gonna be very short.

He only has a limited amount of time and he's also asking reporters to not only stay on topic, but to actually submit their questions in advance, which is causing a little bit of concern among reporters, because we don't do that.

And so I think it's gonna be an interesting conversation that he has with, I think he's trying to reach out to people as we go into Christmas, as we start mixing households and doing activities together with people who may or may not be vaccinated, that there is still an issue of safety that needs to be considered.

- Karen's talking about the push to get boosted.

But as I mentioned earlier, there are many people in some that I know, and Kevin Stefanski being one of them who are double-vaxxed and boosted and are getting diagnosed with COVID-19.

I think in fact, I think he also already had it once before.

So you get to this point, Andrew, and I was talking with somebody else about this before, there had been some hope that if you get vaccinated, if you wear your mask, if you keep your distance, you might avoid getting it.

And now there seems to be this feeling amongst people that, everybody's going to get it.

- Well, how many months are we into it at this point a year and three quarters?

And there's a certain amount of fatigue that I think is probably just driving people to say, okay, I gotta get the mask off, I gotta be, I gotta have some sense of normalcy.

This is purely anecdotal observations, it's hard to really pin whether this is driving this, but if people are so tired that they're letting down their guard, that has gotta be fueling some of this as well.

- And what about Omicron, Marlene, We're we're told that that's in Cleveland now.

- [Marlene] Yeah.

- We know that it exists, it's not supposed to be a big part of the equation, but it's supposedly more easily spread, though not quite as dangerous, we still don't know a lot about that, but you throw that into the equation and you know... - Yeah.

It's like throwing fuel onto the fire, right?

We don't know a lot about Omicron but one thing we do know is that it has health officials, epidemiologists, medical officials, it has them scared to death.

Because this thing is rapidly spreading in the places where it's been.

I mean, they've seen the case counts just go up astronomically when Omicron is around, what they don't know is how severe it's going to be.

So will it be a quick hit where, you know, a lot of people get it, they don't that sick and maybe it's out of here by February.

That's the best case scenario.

But the worst case scenario is that it acts differently here than it's acted in some other places, particularly among older people.

- Adding to the known unknowns here.

It's the confusion of just how prevalent it is.

According to the state dashboard this morning, 99.5% of cases are the Delta variants but health officials have been saying now for a week or two, you know what we think Omicron probably been with us since November.

So we're waiting for the data to catch up so we really have a better sense of just how pervasive and how serious a threat this is.

- The question is, they just don't, you know, sample every case, right?

So the ones that they have found or the ones that they found in the labs that they've sequenced.

But I wanted to share this tweet that I saw yesterday 'cause I think it kinda exemplifies what we're all feeling.

It says I'm exhausted from chasing the constantly moving variant prone target of safety and normalcy.

That's why we're all trying to be safe, right?

So that's why we took all these shots, we're trying to be safe, we're trying to be beyond this.

But you know, health officials told us early on, if we don't get to a certain number of people being vaccinated, this thing can continue to mutate and come back even stronger.

So we should not really be surprised, but still we are.

- Well, let me ask you this then, why is it that there's an outbreak and the hotspot in Cuyahoga County when we have a better vaccination rate than many other places in the state?

- Well, one thing that was interesting about this is seem to move across the state.

So earlier on in the fall, it was in the Southern part of the state and we really weren't not touched up here that much.

I mean, we had it, but it wasn't this bad, but now we've got all the states around us, particularly Michigan, where things have broken out really bad and you know, there's parts of Northern Ohio, which is the hotspot that are right on the Michigan border.

So did it come over from Michigan?

Not sure, but we do know that it's all around now.

But here's the thing we need to remember, even though it's back and we've got all these people in ICU, they're unvaccinated people in the ICU's, the vaccines are working, they're protecting the people who were vaccinated from getting severely sick for the most part.

Of course, you have those exceptions with people who are immunocompromised and that kind of thing.

But when you talk to health officials, the people who are in the ICU are unvaccinated.

- And the governor may be backing off his idea that he needs to get everybody vaccinated and focusing on those who should get their booster.

But there are other groups throughout that are really continuing the drive to encourage people to still get their vaccination, the Akron Urban League, on Wednesday, unveiled a new documentary that it put together, really trying to get them message out to the African-American community about the importance of getting vaccinated by using real tales that they collected at barbershops.

It's gotta be part of the ongoing effort to remind us that 58% of people being vaccinated in Ohio is not a good enough level, We need to keep up.

- Got an email here from Bob in Richfield who's very skeptical.

He says, is DeWine willing to let Delta and Omicron burn through the state and overwhelm our hospitals solely to gain an edge in his may primary?

Politics as a part of this, Karen.

- Yeah, unfortunately is.

And in our interview we did talk a little bit about politics and you know, the, I think the sentiment has been, it's unfortunate that this has become such a politicized issue, but it has, there's no question.

And you know, when Marlene says that we're all trying to be safe.

I mean, you could argue that there's a percentage of the population that isn't really trying because they're refusing to get the vaccine, which science has told us over and over is the best way out of this.

And even when I spoke to a speaker Bob Cupp this week for our TV show, The State Of Ohio, I asked him about bills that would ban vaccine mandate, specifically on COVID vaccines.

And he talked about how there is an, there's a segment of the legislature that is really earnest about their desire to not have these COVID vaccine mandates and he brought up the idea of maybe that isn't grounded in science, but that that group needed to be heard.

And I said, why are we passing legislation that's not grounded in science.

And so that's a really, that's a serious question I think a lot of people have is with the evidence that we have in front of us showing the difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated and how it's starting to blur because there are a large number of people who are unvaccinated and the variant is spreading through those people and spreading to vaccinated people.

This is a really frustrating circumstance for everybody involved.

(electronic music) - The Ohio Senate has passed a bill that would eliminate the training requirement to carry a concealed firearm.

Karen, this seems like it's gonna happen.

- Yeah, I mean, it's, from what I understand from the governor's office again, in our interview this week, the governor wouldn't commit to signing that bill, but said that he is in negotiations with the sponsor of that bill.

So I think he told me about how he wanted the right kind of training for teachers that maybe they didn't need more than 700 hours, which is in state law now, but needed more than 20 hours, which the bill that passed the house would have them have.

So there are talks still going on on that.

Also this week, the permit was concealed carry bill past the Senate, a different version of that same bills is past the house and DeWine would not commit to whether he would sign that or not, there are two bills out there so it's a real question of which one would go forward and he wants to see which one would actually go forward before he would say if he's on it.

- The houses mostly done for the year, is it likely... - Yeah, the house of Senate are both done, yeah.

- They're finished, okay.

So likely we wouldn't see any action on some of those items until the new year?

- Why?

I mean, they've all gone home for Christmas and the new year.

- [Mike] Must be nice.

- Though again, you're right.

Though again, I would suggest that, you know, if the governor today made an announcement about a mask mandate or an emergency order, I think you would potentially see a quick flocking back to Columbus from legislators who wanna overturn that.

- They come running back.

Mike, can I say one thing that's kind of, that's very disturbing to me about this new development in the concealed carry and that we also have in Ohio now, the legislature passed this, "stand your ground law."

So now people don't have to like actively retreat like you did before.

- [Mike] Right.

- So now we've got the situation where you can say, I feel threatened so I took a shot and we're making it much easier for people to have guns in their hands and have them concealed.

It just seems like a very toxic brew that We're setting up here in Ohio and I, this just feels like a tragedy waiting to happen.

- And we've talked about this before, but then who might be the most likely to be on the other end of that?

- Exactly.

I mean, you think about African-Americans and what we've seen in terms of interactions with police and other citizens who might say, well, you know, I felt threatened by that person because, it's a great big African-American guy.

So I stood my ground and I had my gun concealed.

And also on the other side of that, Mike, when you see people of color who have guns and who are rightful gun owners, that's not always respected by law enforcement the same way it is with other groups.

(electronic music) - And now it's time to look ahead to 2022, no one has a crystal ball, but it's pretty obvious that the year ahead is going to be a big political year.

Karen, let's talk about Statewide, the field's already crowded to take Senator Rob Portman seat.

- Yeah.

The crowded field already.

It's been the Republican side That's really been the, where the crowd is.

You got Josh Mandel, Jane Timken, JD Vans, Mike Gibbons, Bernie Marino and Matt Dolan on the Republican side and there were other more minor candidates that are also on that side, facing Tim Ryan and Morgan Harper on the democratic side.

And this is really turning into quite a spectacle especially on the Republican side where you've got, these candidates say for Matt Dolan, trying to kind of out Trump each other.

- [Mike] Right.

- And all of them are competing for Trump's attention.

He has said that he will endorse at some point, though it's unclear whether he'll endorse in the primary or whether Herald endorsed in the general election.

It seems that whoever wins the Republican race seems to have the edge because, this is Senator Rob Portman and Republican it's his seat and the state has trended Republican in the last several election cycles.

But you know, certainly there are Democrats who are looking at this race as an opportunity to really go after the whole Trump agenda and put in somebody who's a little bit more like a Tim Ryan or a Morgan Harper in touch with more of a working class democratic viewpoint.

- There was a statement made earlier by one of our listeners about the politics involving governor DeWine wanting to have an edge in his race.

He's also up for reelection this year.

He's got a primary challenger and then there's a bunch of people that are getting in so far on the democratic side.

- Yeah.

I mean, you've got on the democratic side, Dayton mayor Nan Whaley and Cincinnati mayor John Cranley so the Southwest Ohio democratic contingent there running on the democratic side there, but then you've got Mike DeWine, also Joe Blystone, who's a central Ohio farmer and businessman and Jim Renacci, former Congressman from Northeast Ohio, those two are running to DeWine's right and there may even be some others who might try to enter the race running to DeWine's right which is pretty, and that's a pretty staggering statement for somebody who's followed Mike DeWine for many years, that anybody would be running to his right.

But that's where we are at this point.

They are certainly looking at him and the actions that he took during the pandemic as being things that they want to criticize.

I just don't know though, looking at things right now that DeWine, it's his race to lose I think, because again, the state is trended, fairly Republican.

He's well known, his opponents are not that well known and so, this is, I think it's, he he'll run a strong race certainly, he hasn't announced officially yet, but it's coming.

- All right.

A little bit more politics, a little bit more local, just as Cleveland saw leadership change at 2021, Cuyahoga County will see one in 2022.

Executive Armond Budish will not seek another term, leaves a wide open race.

Candidates already have declared Democrats, Chris Ronayne, the former president of a University Circle and maple Heights mayor Annette Blackwell, Republican Lee Wineguard was the first one in the race, former Cuyahoga County commissioner, maybe more candidates coming, but this ought to be pretty interesting to watch Andrew.

- I'm really curious to see what goes on behind the scenes, especially on the democratic side.

I got to say that there's been dissension in Cuyahoga County Democratic Party factional fighting that's been going on.

I'm really curious to see if that we're gonna see that manifest itself when it comes to primary time for the democratic nomination.

- And we should note that Cuyahoga County, it as tough as it is for a Democrat to win a statewide seat in Ohio, it's tough for a Republican to win the executive position or really any seat that's County-wide in Cuyahoga County.

It's very democratic.

- It is indeed.

- Moving on, I wanted to just take a couple of minutes at the very end of our program now to talk about what we're going to be looking for in the year ahead.

So maybe a minute each, but Marlene, you said you're going to be paying attention, obviously you'll be paying attention to COVID.

- [Marlene] Yes.

- So that's back again.

- [Marlene] Yes.

- [Mike] But long COVID specifically.

- Long COVID is a big one.

I mean, obviously Omicron is gonna dominate a lot of coverage, but many people have gotten sick and recovered, but not fully recovered from COVID.

They have all kinds of issues from brain, neurological issues to issues with just functioning in their bodies and other ways.

And the thing is that people didn't necessarily have to be like very sick, like in ICU and on ventilators, even people who have mild cases of COVID are suffering from these long COVID systems.

And our medical community is trying to figure out all the different things that are part of this long COVID syndrome and how to help people best.

So that's gonna continue to be a big story in 2022.

- Yeah.

We had our friend Jay Williams on the program here to talk about that and the effort that he was getting together to try to gather people, gather data, get some information on that, he himself being somebody that's dealing with long COVID, that's happening with a lot of people.

- A lot of people.

- I'm glad we're gonna be paying attention to that.

Andrew, let's talk about maybe one thing you're going to be paying attention to, our staff will be, but you've got a handle on and that's development in the Merriman Valley.

- One of the things that's been a little under the radar because of the pandemic and everything else that's been going on is this area that straddles Cuyahoga Falls and Akron.

It's basically the Southern gateway to the Cuyahoga valley National Park and their development pressures there.

There've been proposals for new housing developments there that a group Preserve the Valley have been finding.

Part of the outcome of that has been an effort by both the city of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls to engage a consulting firm, to come up with a master plan, to think about how they can better manage development in that area.

They had an engagement session this week.

There's a lot of positive stuff that was well received by Preserve the Valley at this point so we're looking forward to seeing what more Comes out of that.

- And we will be reporting on it for sure.

And Karen, where do you know what you're working on.

And we just talked about, a Senate race, a governor's race, you'll be looking at COVID heading into 2022 and how the political climate deals with that.

There's also the maps that we didn't even talk about, - [Karen] Yeah, that's right.

- But those are being challenged and now there's gonna be oral arguments in the Ohio Supreme Court.

So you got your plate full, we'll just let you go ahead and dig into that.

- Yeah, I mean, obviously those maps and also schools, I think are gonna be a big battle ground.

I think we're gonna see that becoming very political, with COVID involved as well, staffing shortages, all that.

Schools are going to be a big, a big factor.

- Monday on The Sound of Ideas on 90.3 WCPN.

If you have plans to buy a new car, you may find that idea to be a non-starter.

Supply chain disruptions have led to a shortage of cars and the parts to make more.

I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

(soft music)