(calming music) - [Mike McIntyre] We're shrinking; 2020 US census data shows Cleveland lost population while Cincinnati and Columbus gained residents.

The Delta variant is driving up COVID-19 cases statewide, with more hospitalizations and patients in need of intensive care and ventilators, just as schools prepare to bring students back into the classroom, and concert venues grapple with the pandemic, some requiring vaccination for patrons.

"Ideas" is next.

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(inspiring music) - Hello, and welcome to "Ideas," I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for joining us.

The 2020 census numbers are out, and it's not at all good news for Cleveland, nor for Ohio.

Cleveland's population slide continues, while Columbus and Cincinnati gained residents.

And while the state grew in population, that growth lagged other states, meaning we're losing another seat in Congress, and as a result influence in Washington.

The seven candidates hoping to lead this less populated city met this week at the Idea Center for the first of two mayoral primary debates.

Among the topics, healthcare, racial equity and transparency in government.

The candidates have another chance Tuesday, the day early voting begins, to separate themselves in a second debate.

In pandemic news, the Ohio Department of Health director, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, calls the rise in COVID-19 cases troubling.

Hospital beds, intensive care units and ventilators are in greater demand.

Nearly all of those in the hospital, he says, are not vaccinated or not fully vaccinated.

This latest spike comes as schools prepare to bring students back into the classroom.

While many went to virtual learning last year, they're reticent to do so this year.

Some are recommending masks, others will require them.

It's a decision that can put parents and administrators and even parents and parents at odds.

Lawmakers, however, could change the dynamic with new legislation that would prevent masking requirements and leave the choice to parents alone.

Joining me to discuss these stories and more, Ideas Stream public media health reporter Anna Huntsman, and multiple media producer Gabriel Kramer, and from Columbus, statehouse news bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Karen, the census numbers show us that we're going to lose a congressional seat.

What does that mean for Ohio?

- Well, it means less influence arguably.

I mean, there were seven states in total that lost congressional seats and Ohio did have population growth, 2.3%.

But it was so much less than other states that actually gained congressional seats that we ended up losing one, along with California, New York and Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia.

So, you know, we have arguably fewer people to advocate on behalf of Ohio.

And what this really means now is, as the process gets going to redraw that congressional district map, the decision has to be made of which party is going to lose the seat.

The 16 seats that are already there, they were drawn specifically to be 12 Republican and four Democratic, and that's what they've been for the last 10 years.

Now that changes, and there's a new process to do that with.

And that's what a lot of people are watching right now.

- What's up with Columbus?

There seems to be so many people there that the state is going to swallow down the middle because everyone's going to the middle.

- Yeah, I mean, when you look at the number of 88 counties, you had 33 counties that gained population, 55 counties lost population.

Looking at the top 10 counties that gained population, five of those are in central Ohio, four of those are in Southwest Ohio, but not Hamilton county.

Some of the counties outside of the Cincinnati area, Butler County, Miami County, Claremont County, the one county in that top 10 new was not in either Central Ohio or Southwest Ohio was Medina County, but Columbus has been for a while an economic engine, and that's arguably driving people.

When they're coming to the state, they're coming here typically for a job or they're coming here to go to college and stay, you know?

And so that's a little bit of an explanation of why Franklin County and some of the surrounding counties are so high up on that list, Delaware county being the one that grew the most in terms of population percentage growth.

- Gabe, you're a Medina county guy, what's attracting people there?

- My parents' house, apparently.

(panel laughing) - [McIntyre] Everybody's flopping there?

- Yes, people are coming through.

No, I think it's telling though, because if you look across the country, metro areas are growing, but Cleveland seems to be not growing.

So when you think about the rest of the state, those metro areas are growing Cincinnati, Columbus.

So there's something different that's going on around the state than it is in Cleveland.

- There was a couple of other big cities.

You mentioned Cincinnati and Columbus, they're growing, but Toledo's not, Akron's not, Cleveland's not, sort of none of the others are.

So I guess the question is, what's the secret in those cities?

And the other thing is, we are losing people in these big cities, however, we're also losing them in rural areas.

- Yes, yeah, that's right.

When you looked at the top 15 counties in terms of the largest percentage population lost, they were all in rural Ohio.

So there definitely seems to be something going on in terms of the migration of people who are coming into Ohio to seek out areas like Central Ohio and Southwest Ohio, and not necessarily look at those rural areas.

And that's really interesting too, when you start talking about how to draw those congressional district lines.

We had five congressional districts that lost population, three of them were three of the four democratic districts.

So Tim Ryan's district, Marcy Kaptur's district, Marcy Kaptur's district of course, being the "Snake on the Lake" that goes from Toledo over to Cleveland, Tim Ryan's district in the Youngstown area, the right now vacant 11th district, which last week had that primary, the primary to decide who's going to be on the ballot in November to replace Marcia Fudge, and then the two Republican districts that lost population were Bill Johnson's districts in Appalachian Ohio, and then Jim Jordan's district, which goes from the Dayton-Urbana area all the way up to Oberlin.

So, you know, as those districts are going to be redrawn, that really gives you a clue of where the population is changing and where lawmakers might be looking at how to draw those lines and which party's going to lose a seat.

- Are we in Cleveland at the head or the tail of the Snake on the Lake?

- I think you're at the tail, but I'm not sure.

It depends on how you look at it, you know?

I mean, it's a visual.

- Depends on where you're from, really.

- [Hunstman] Yeah, probably.

- So we're going to lose a congressional seat.

Does that mean it's sort of like Survivor and we're going to vote somebody off?

Or how does that actually work?

- That is the question.

And on our TV show, "the State of Ohio" this week, I sat down with one of the two Democratic members of the redistricting commission, Senator Vernon Sykes of Akron.

The redistricting commission draws the lines for State House and Senate districts, but then state lawmakers draw the lines for congressional districts.

And I asked him, is there any indication of which party is going to lose that seat?

He says so far none, and he says, there haven't been any other meetings because they haven't had the census data to look at.

And that data then goes from the census to Ohio University.

They process it and verify it.

Then they send it to lawmakers.

So we still don't know which party is likely to lose a seat.

But boy, you know, with Republicans dominating the state legislature and this redistricting commission, there are a lot of Democrats who are very concerned.

- Let's talk a little bit about, we said they're going to lose a congressional seat, but we're also in Cleveland going to be losing two council seats.

Why is that Gabe?

- So there is a city charter that says, if the population goes below 375,000 people, they will go, the city will go from 17 seats to 15.

So that's where we're headed.

And you know the city went from 396K to about 372K.

- And it's interesting, because the estimate from the Census Bureau was around 378,000, which means we wouldn't have lost those seats.

Now we're to the point where that's going to happen.

It's not immediate though, we're talking about years from now, right?

- Right, so we have an election coming up, people running for council, you know, the primary in September and the general election in November.

But we're looking at 2025, 2029 elections where we're going to be seeing 15 people running for council rather than 17.

- There is a lot of concern about the fact that the count may not have been particularly good.

And there's a number of reasons for that.

Minority groups may not have been counted properly, for a few reasons according to advocates.

First, research has found that younger people, minorities and those with lower incomes are less likely to fill out the required forms.

Also the pandemic and the efforts to add a citizenship question.

Some say that had a chilling effect, even though it didn't work Gabe.

- Yeah, we saw a lot of reporting in 2020 about the Census.

You know, there's a lot of what are seemingly barriers to some people, so if you put into question about whether or not you're a citizen, which they did not put on the census, but just having the thought of it being there or the threat of it being there makes a lot of people want to turn away of, do I really want to give my private information out there, especially if you're undocumented, if you're a new immigrant, there was a push, you know, to limit immigrants or even deport immigrants over the last few years, so I think people are afraid to give out the personal information.

And as you said, there's people who are homeless.

There are people who are bouncing through a lot of homes.

where under-reporting could contribute to that, but there's also were also questions on, on the Census about your race, right?

So it could say, so there are two questions about race.

One are you have a Latino or Hispanic descent, and then the following on, what is specifically your race?

And that includes White, Black, Native American, Asian American, along those, you know, those are the things that you would choose from.

So it became confusing for a lot of people.

There's a lot of questions out there that people decide to leave blank.

And that's not just a Cleveland issue, that's a nationwide issue, so, you know, Cleveland is falling in line.

So you could find a lot of people being unreported, you know, Cleveland being, you know, a fairly diverse place where, you know, a lot of minority groups who could find themselves not wanting to answer these questions at all, or refraining from answering them completely.

(dramatic music) - Ohio hospitals are filling up as more people across the state are infected with the Coronavirus Delta variant.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates a substantial or high level of transmission of the virus in all but three of Ohio's 88 counties.

Anna, it's here.

- It is here, and we've been kind of watching this for a while now, and I think what's really interesting about this variant is, it has just really gone rapidly throughout the state.

And so I've been kind of following this for the last month or so.

I remember press conferences, mid July, it was about 30% of samples and it was kind of concerning at that point because we saw other States seeing, you know, major spikes with Delta and we would continue to ask health officials, what are we seeing here?

And they'd say, well, it's, you know, it's still pretty minor here.

And just within the last couple of weeks, yesterday, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff saying that now nearly all of the samples in the State that are being sequenced are the Delta variant.

Obviously this makes sense, when you think about what makes a Delta variant what it is, which is it's highly contagious, so it's very transmissible.

And so we're just kind of seeing it rip through places, especially with lots of unvaccinated individuals.

So another thing that's kind of concerning about this is it's so contagious that vaccinated people can also spread it, there is some data there.

- Karen, what we're seeing is a real stress on the healthcare system as a result of it, or could be.

- Yeah, I mean, I was tracking hospitalizations for COVID back when we had the winter surge and we got to a point of 5,308 COVID positive hospitalizations in Ohio, which was a record.

Now we are down from that, but we're moving back up.

I mean, right now it was, it's a one in 10 people who are in Ohio hospitals are COVID positive.

Just a couple of weeks ago, it was one in 28.

So the numbers of people who are being hospitalized are definitely going up in terms of people who have COVID.

And one of the things that came out on the call yesterday that was really interesting is who is actually getting COVID and being hospitalized.

I mean, 99% are unvaccinated, but also the doctors were saying that these are younger patients.

In the winter, they were a lot older.

These are younger patients in their twenties, thirties, forties, even fifties.

And also they tend to be obese.

And Ohio has a fairly high obesity rate.

I mean, we have 29% of the state's population that is obese.

And we've seen before how COVID does make systems, makes things worse when you have pre-existing conditions.

And so that's one that they're really worried about and saying that it seems to be people who are younger, unvaccinated and obese, you can very easily end up having a very negative outcome if you get COVID.

And so the message continues to be, to get the vaccinations and go ahead and get those COVID shots.

But there there's no mandate, there's no requirement.

Some employers are doing that, but right now, no statewide mandate.

- And Anna, one thing to note is that you can be vaccinated and still get a breakthrough case.

Cause I think that's sometimes being used as evidence for why you shouldn't have to get vaxxed, it doesn't work.

Because I got it as well.

But the numbers, what they're showing us, is if you're vaccinated, your chances of getting incredibly sick are pretty low, - Right, like Karen was saying, I mean, 99% of the people hospitalized are unvaccinated.

And we knew starting out with the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson vaccines when they were authorized, they're not 100%.

So there's always going to be a chance that somebody will get a breakthrough case.

Of course, these are very high numbers.

And to be honest, one of the doctors was talking about this on the call yesterday.

A lot of the vaccines that we all got when we were little and that have been authorized for years are like 50%.

So to see these 90%, you know, numbers is really huge, but as more and more people get the shots, you're going to start to see breakthrough cases.

But to be clear, these people are having pretty mild cases, for the most part, maybe even asymptomatic.

So that is why doctors continue to urge people to get the shot, to protect yourself from getting really severely ill. We don't want people in the hospital, we don't want people on ventilators.

- You said shots plural, and that means most people have gone through a two shot regimen unless you've done the J&J, - [Karen] Right.

- But now we're hearing that some people might need a booster; who needs that and what did we hear yesterday from the FDA?

- Right, so the FDA has officially given the go-ahead that immunocompromised people could benefit from a third, an extra dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

This is a very small handful of the population.

So this is maybe going to be people like organ transplant recipients, possibly cancer patients, and something we have even known when the shots were first getting out is that unfortunately, immunocompromised people were not having the same antibody reaction as people who are not immunocompromised.

So the CDC today still has to officially recommend it and say who can get this third shot.

We can't all just go out right now.

And the doctors and experts continue to say that for the general population, the two shots or the one-shot Johnson and Johnson are still really keeping you protected from a severe case.

We might need booster shots eventually.

But for now it's really only the people with weakened immune systems.

- Let's talk about masks, they're being recommended or required in more places as a result of the new surge of Delta.

I know a lot of places, it seemed like it was over.

Now you walk in, you know, if you're smart, you're wearing a mask, although in some places they require it and some places are they're not requiring it, but hoping that you will wear it.

And now we talk about school boards wrestling with decisions, as parents and community members have varying opinions about whether mandates for masks or consequences for the unvaccinated should be employed.

This spike is also putting a crimp in live concert venues plans for return to action, some venues are requiring proof of the vaccine or a negative test for admission.

And we had a email, or a tweet here from Jim who says, "Given yesterday's news that the Agora in Cleveland is requiring proof of full vaccination for concert goers, are insurance company policies literally moving the needle?

Seems requiring event promoters to have vaccination policies to limit risk is sound policy."

So we're seeing that going on, Gabe, it's not just the Agora, but other places that are saying, "That's what we're going to do now."

- Well, what's interesting about the Agora is they're saying must be vaccinated, that starting October 1st.

In the meantime, you're vaccinated, or you can provide proof of a test, that you passed the COVID-19 test, right?

So that's the way that a lot of venues are heading, whether it's Live Nation or a lot of places are saying, "You need to provide one or the other."

You know, I was talking with Kevin Anderson, our colleague who's from Wisconsin.

I have plans personally later this summer to head to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a really big music festival, SummerFest.

And we got an alert just this week that said you have to provide your vaccination card or proof that you passed a test.

- [McIntyre] Are you still going to go?

- I have a few weeks to decide, I'm still mulling that over.

And I think a lot of people are still thinking about, they have to make the decision, whether or not this is something worth doing or not doing.

I think it does add somewhat of a safety or you're thinking like, okay, there's an exclusive group of people that are going.

Because most of us are going to be vaccinated or we tested negative for the virus.

- I was just going to say too that, it's not just venues at this point.

I think it's individual artists that are performing.

Like I saw a story about Maroon 5 playing at Blossom soon, and they're going to require people to have proof of vaccination.

So it's not a Blossom policy, that's the band itself wants to have that sort of thing.

So I was curious too, when you were talking about the concert that you want to go to, if that made you feel safer a little bit, now that people, they are going to require vaccinations?.

- Well, I think there's two trains of thought and I'm still deciding on my train of thought personally, but the train of thought is, "Oh, these are all people who I would feel safe being around."

It's kind of like when me and all my friends or my family got vaccinated, we thought, "Oh, we can come together and do this thing."

But now with the Delta variant, it is kind of scary and things.

But as you said earlier is, you know, if we're learning anything from these breakthrough cases, it's probably that the vaccine is in fact working and you know, there's fewer hospitalizations for people who are vaccinated, and the breakthrough cases are happening, but at a lower rate than for unvaccinated people.

- And there's another train of thought.

I mean, I have to speculate that some people will just say, nope, I'm not going to this concert because I don't want to get the shot, yeah.

- Let's talk about the schools though Anna.

So we, I know in Rocky River, they had made a decision where younger students, the grade school students do have to wear masks, left up to the older ones to decide, although they would face consequences if they tested positive that are different from those who are vaccinated or wearing masks.

So there's a lot of encouraging going on.

And then the reason all of these kind of negotiations are happening is because parents are very split on this.

You could see a school board meeting and people say, "Hey, the government can't tell me to put a mask on my kid, it's my decision."

And others are saying, "The CDC says we should be doing this and we want to make our kids safe."

So we've got this being wrestled with at school districts across the State.

- Right, and there's also a new law on the books about whether people can require masks in schools and things like that, and there's a part in there that says you can't discriminate against unvaccinated students.

So I think a lot of schools are having this dilemma of, "Well, we can either do it for everybody or we don't do it for anybody."

So lots to consider, lots of stuff in the ring here.

And again, the Ohio Department of Health has not come out with any mandates or orders about this.

They've kind of just recommended.

- [McIntyre] Well they can't.

- Exactly.

But I'm saying they they've just recommended this and left it up to the school districts.

- [McIntyre] Karen?

- Yeah, I just wanted to add that there are two bills that are under consideration, both Republican backed, one in the House and one in the Senate.

In fact, we found out about the one in the House while we were on the call with the doctors from the Ohio Department of health yesterday.

These would prevent schools from instituting mask mandates, ban them from instituting mask mandates, which a lot of schools, including the State's largest school districts have done.

There is a law that I think Anna was just referencing that says that the governor can no longer issue a mandate without the legislature then being able to weigh in and cancel it.

And that goes for any sort of public health orders.

And it also covers local health departments.

And so you're seeing local health departments advise people to wear masks, but not have masks mandates.

And businesses, they are not covered by this, but they could be under several different proposals that are out there, including this bill that would ban all mandatory vaccines, including ones that have had FDA approval for years, that kids get in childhood, that kids get before going to college.

That bill is coming up for a hearing, an emergency hearing on August 24th.

And it would also ban those so-called mask/vaccine passports and basically make it so that concerts artists and businesses and all these other entities could no longer require proof of vaccine to have entry.

(dramatic music) - The seven candidates hoping to succeed Frank Jackson as Mayor of Cleveland met for the first of two debates this week here at the Idea Center.

Topics in the debate, which we coordinated along with the City Club of Cleveland included housing, healthcare and racial equity.

All questions were submitted by Cleveland residents, got another one next week on Tuesday that'll deal with the economy and jobs and transportation and environment, some other issues.

But Gabe, one topic that got a lot of attention this first debate was the issue of transparency in government.

- Yeah, and I can't say that comes as much of a surprise.

And I think all these candidates are trying to prove themselves to be more front facing, more willing to shake your hand and be in the public eye more than Frank Jackson was last 16 years.

And I think, you know, two candidates have stuck out in that realm, Sandra Williams and Zack Reed, really touting their ability to want to have even one-on-one meetings with people, wanting to really be out in the community and talking to residents about what issues are at hand, what's most important to them.

And, you know, there was a small little bout between two of the candidates, Kevin Kelley, who was Council president, and Basheer Jones, who is a Ward Seven Councilman, and you know, Basheer Jones talked to Kelley about how, you know, things are happening in City Council and decisions are being made with the City without a lot of say from residents.

And I think, you know, we're talking about public comments, you know, and when we have a lack of ability to speak your mind or say things at city council meetings, that's what Jones was bringing up.

And Kelley defended himself saying he's making efforts in the last few months, and to be fair, he is making efforts to find a way to get more public comment available at these meetings.

So, you know, we're talking about these things as being just a way to be more upfront.

And Justin Bibb, who had a pretty powerful quote saying, you know, people don't trust the government, you know, paraphrasing, saying that people have a lack of trust in the government because decisions are being made without them in mind.

So this was a big topic of conversation.

And I think that will continue to be one, as we head for the Primary.

- Racial equity was also an important topic in the debate.

I remember turning to you, we were in the control room and I said, can you believe the amount of time that was spent on the "Stop Asian Hate" movement when maybe two years ago, if this was a debate then, you know, certainly people might've been concerned about it, but it wouldn't have dominated that plank of the conversation, and now it does.

- Right, and this is, and I thank you for pulling me aside to say that on Tuesday, because here's the, before we jump into this, what I want to say is, you know, credit to the Asian American community here in Northeast Ohio to draw attention to the issues at hand and demand that something be done about it, right?

We've been reporting a story for last year and a half about an increase of anti-Asian racism, you know, attacks on AAPI communities, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

So, you know, credit to the advocates and allies and the community itself to stand up and demand something.

And to their credit, what's happening is people are paying attention.

Seven people who are running for the mayor of the city are paying attention and going in depth about this.

You know, Justin Bibb made a promise to include AAPI representation in his cabinet, and through his staffing throughout the city.

And that's a pretty huge deal.

I think every candidate said something along the lines of wanting to provide training, racial bias training and you know, things along those lines to make sure that people are well equipped to handle with racism and take notice to racism and have less bias in their life, right?

But you know, those are easy promises to make certainly, and I think what Asian-American communities are hoping for or want to hear from people are beyond these promises of what are we going to do to put an end to, or try to really reduce racism?

And one of the things is, how are we going to educate citizens and people as to what's going on in these communities and the history of Asian-Americans.

You know, I'm getting emails and text messages all the time from people saying, "One of the things that we really want from educators, is to force educators to have this education about Asian-American history in schools and the state of Illinois requires, they now passed a bill that requires that that's taught in schools.

And I know that Asian Americans in Ohio are wanting the same thing.

You know, racial equity is a huge issue.

I expect candidates to obviously continue this conversation.

We heard them talk about interracial equity in African-American communities, Asian America communities, but we didn't hear a lot about the Latinx community.

And I'm sure we'll hear from that in the next few weeks.

- Mayor Frank Jackson made his endorsement this week.

He hadn't as of last week's debate.

This week, he weighed in for Kevin Kelley, the council president, says he has a long relationship with him, and question is what impact does endorsement from the 16-year Mayor will.

- It's have gotta be a big impact.

I mean, he comes with a lot of criticism, Frank Jackson, but he's won the last four elections, so he comes with even more support.

So if this city has been supporting him for 16 years, the little that shows up to the polls supports him in the last 16 years, that support's got to go a long way for Kevin Kelley too.

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

Coming up Monday on the "Sound of Ideas," We'll bring you the latest community conversation on the Cleveland police consent decree, convened by the United Way of Greater Cleveland and the Cleveland NAACP.

This month's conversation focuses on issues related to search and seizure and includes thoughts on police pursuit policy.

I'm Mike MacIntyre, thanks for watching and engaging and stay safe.

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