(bright music) - [Mike] A bill signed by Governor Mike DeWine prohibits schools from requiring students to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but Cleveland State University will still require on-campus students to be vaccinated.

A kidney was transplanted into the wrong patient at University Hospitals.

How could that happen?

We aren't getting many answers.

And claims of widespread voter fraud are debunked by the Ohio Secretary of State.

"Ideas" is next.

- [Narrator] Brought to you by Westfield, offering insurance to protect what's yours, grow your business, and achieve your dreams.

(dramatic music) - Hello, and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

We're all getting used to looser pandemic restrictions, but it may be too soon to call this a post-pandemic world, and public policy is still a topic of debate.

This week Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill that would prohibit public schools, colleges, and universities from requiring students to be vaccinated.

It applies to any vaccine that is not fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is clearly aimed at the COVID-19 vaccine, which has Emergency Use Authorization.

In other news, unhoused men sheltering at a hotel in Independence were told to leave earlier than planned after pressure from that city's mayor.

The move has outraged homeless advocates.

The governor says the state could kick in some funding to help renovate Progressive Field as the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County negotiate a lease extension for Major League Baseball there.

And the talker story of the week.

A transplant team at University Hospitals gave a kidney to the wrong patient.

How could that possibly happen?

We'll talk about that and much more ahead on the "Reporters' Roundtable."

Joining me this week, Ideastream Public Media Managing Producer for Health, Marlene Harris-Taylor.

Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau Chief, Karen Kasler.

And Buckeye Flame Editor, Ken Schneck.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Public schools and colleges and universities in Ohio soon will be barred from requiring students to prove they've gotten the COVID-19 vaccine before returning to campus.

Governor Mike DeWine signed a new law this week.

It goes into effect October 12th.

It says only vaccines fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could be required.

The COVID-19 vaccine has Emergency Use Authorization.

Regardless, Cleveland State University says it still plans to require students who are living on campus to be fully vaccinated this fall.

It begins in August before the law takes effect.

Other state universities, Akron and Kent State locally, say they are not requiring students to be vaccinated.

Meanwhile, back to school policies remain uncertain as vaccination rates stall.

COVID-19 cases go up again nationally.

And the Delta variant apparently is on the rise.

Karen, this law is for vaccines, as I mentioned, that are not fully approved by the FDA.

The COVID-19 vaccines are not, so clearly it's something that's aimed directly at the COVID-19 vaccine.

- Yeah, let's be clear about two things here.

It does say that schools and universities, public schools and universities cannot require staff and students to get any sort of vaccine that has not been granted full approval from the FDA, but, honestly, the only vaccine that's in widespread use right now that does not have full approval from the FDA is the COVID vaccines which have emergency approval.

- Marlene, I think the cover that the governor has here is that he says it's gonna be moot anyway.

- Uh-huh.

- So what does he mean there?

Both Pfizer and Moderna of two of the big makers.

They've already asked for full approval?

- Yeah, they both have asked for full approval.

And my understanding is the FDA is still waiting for some information from Moderna, but Pfizer has turned in all their information.

And normally it's a really slow process.

I mean, it could take up to a year in most cases in a typical case for a drug to get full approval, but there are people out there who are saying, come on FDA.

I mean, this vaccine has been given to millions of people.

These vaccines, I should say, have been given to millions of people, and there's so much data that's already been collected.

Can't you do something to speed up the red tape here, and go ahead and get this into full authorization because it does seem to be holding up things like legislatures saying, okay, we can go ahead and give this to kids.

And it's, also, we're hearing linked to a lot of the hesitancy out there.

Whether it's an excuse, or not, people are saying, well, this thing is not fully authorized.

- [Mike] It's experimental.

- It's experimental.

So I'm not taking it until the FDA gives it full approval.

- Interesting.

What about, Ken, the educational policy part of this?

It's part of what you do.

You're an expert in educational policy.

So we have Cleveland State saying we want fully vaccinated students who are going to live on campus that's our policy, and we're gonna go forward with it because this law doesn't come into effect until October, so we can still do that, but then many universities in Ohio are saying, we're not even getting into that, we're not mentioning it.

So how does that play out?

- The national landscape for this is fascinating, so.

"Inside Higher Ed" actually just came out with a story this morning just a few hours ago, that there are hundreds of colleges and universities across the country who are mandating vaccines.

And there are obviously many more that are just not sure what to do.

They're offering incentives.

There are some really fun incentives that colleges are offering right now, free textbooks at one school.

And I think it's important to note here, this isn't just about the students.

This is about staff and faculty as well, and whether or not we should be mandating that staff and faculty be vaccinated.

So some are trying to get in under the deadlines because there are a lot of states that are going to be doing exactly as Ohio does, but it's a dizzying array of responses from colleges, and universities which just points to there's no national memorandum that everyone can follow of how we approach this.

- And I wonder if we do end up seeing a quicker approval from the FDA for full approval of these vaccines, whether the legislature would then tack, Karen, and say, oh, we didn't mean not fully approved we meant, and there could be some other way to target that particular vaccine?

- I think the legislature, and what it's gonna do on vaccines is really interesting because there still is this bill out there that would allow for the banning of all mandatory vaccines, all vaccines that have FDA approval for measles, and all these things that have been around for a while, that bill is still out there and it hasn't moved.

It hasn't had a hearing since June, but that's still something that the legislature is considering.

And so, of course, that would ban not just the COVID vaccine once it gets full approval, but all of those, and what is interesting to note here, I mentioned that there was a call from the Ohio Department of Health the same day that this bill was signed.

And one of the things that the doctors on that call were asked, the medical director for Ohio Department of Health, and Dr. Andy Thomas, who a lot of people might remember from the DeWine press conferences.

He's with Ohio State and is an outspoken person on COVID, and these sorts of issues.

They were asked about some of the misinformation that's coming out, the disinformation that's coming out, including at committee hearings on that bill that would ban all mandatory vaccines.

You had people and you saw the national coverage, people who have since been de-platformed for some of the things that they said.

And they said that this is disturbing that some of this information is out there because it is affecting vaccination rates.

It is affecting people's decisions to get vaccinated.

And so that's another thing that the state is trying to combat in terms of a mixed message here, where the governor is saying we want people to get vaccines.

The health department is saying we want people to get vaccines, but then there are these bills, including the one that DeWine signed that said, schools don't have to require that.

- I did want to talk about the vaccine itself.

Many people who have gotten them, have really gotten the two shot protocol, or if you were Johnson and Johnson you got one.

And now we're hearing maybe you'll need a booster.

Maybe you won't.

That's not uncommon.

Anybody whose been vaccinated with childhood vaccines will discover when they're gonna travel, or something, might need a booster shot on those kinds of things, but there's a lot of question, Marlene, about whether a booster will be needed.

I think Pfizer has asked for approval to give booster shots.

I know that your team talked with some local physicians to try to find out whether that was something we even need.

- Yeah, it's interesting because UH, University Hospitals, is participating in one of these mass clinical trials where thousands of people across the country will participate at different hospital sites to see if a booster shot is needed, but even at UH, when we spoke to a physician there, when the health team, I believe it was Anna Huntsman on our team, spoke with him earlier this week.

Even he wasn't convinced at that point that a booster is actually necessary.

So far from the evidence they've seen the two shots, and even the Johnson and Johnson shot seems to be holding up against all of the different variants, including the Delta variant that we're so worried about right now, but it's one of these things that we're learning as we go.

And the people who will be in these clinical trials are the people who were in the original clinical trials.

So they've had the shots, if you want to say in them the longest.

- [Mike] Right.

- So we'll see if it's holding up in that group, but there's a lot of confusion right now because there's different messaging coming from all over the place as this happens so much during this epidemic.

(dramatic music) - University Hospitals has placed two caregivers on administrative leave after a medical error earlier this month resulted in a transplant patient receiving a kidney meant for another patient.

And you just wonder, Marlene, and we don't have the details on this, how?

- I know it's such a head-scratcher because you're right.

Even when you go in for something like to get blood drawn so they could, like, look and see how you're doing in your annual physical.

They ask you a bazillion times, what's your name?

What's your date of birth?

So University Hospitals is not being very forthcoming with details on this.

They say they're investigating the incident, you know, so they want to wait 'til they finish their investigation.

The body that oversees organ donations, they say they're investigating.

They're looking into whether they should investigate what happened there.

So we don't know much other than that original news release that came out.

We're not even getting an update on the patient who received the kidney in error.

So we're assuming that that patient is still okay.

And we don't know how long the patient who did not receive the kidney is going to have to wait.

- I'm obsessed with this story.

I literally have nothing of substance to add, except to say that I watched "ER" for 15 years, and have watched "Grey's Anatomy" for 14 years.

I think there are documentaries.

I think there are procedures I could probably do.

If you start coughing, I think I could put in a central line, but this is, it's just one of those stories where how is this possible?

They haven't gone this far on these shows.

They would say, this is too outlandish of a story.

And yet here we are.

- Well, I will say that Anna Huntsman reported that there was a similar case in 2019 at another hospital.

- [Mike] Though it is very rare.

- It's very, very rare, but in that other case where it happened, it was a patient who had, like, a similar name, similar age kind of situation.

And you got to wonder if it was something like that that happened here.

- I still haven't recovered after 007, by the way, on "Grey's Anatomy," but anyway, let's move on.

I do want to ask though, Ken, what about the idea, and we talked about this before, how things can dissuade people from getting a COVID vaccine because they're told it's not fully approved.

So there is sort of a reason to say no.

Here it comes to organ donation, so important.

There's living organ donation.

You can give one of your kidneys.

And I know many people who have done that for relatives.

You can get a portion of your lung, of your liver.

So there's living donation as well as if you mark it on your driver's license, for example, and you meet your demise, you can help someone else.

Would this be something that might dissuade people from doing that?

- I'm just kind of really zeroed in, honed in on how we're framing the narrative right now.

So with something like this kidney story, to what degree do we need to say as journalists, this is a fascinating story, and certainly news, and let's talk about this, but how far do we have to go in saying, this is not something you should be worried about.

- That's a great point, Ken, because this story has gotten so much attention locally, nationally, I don't know about internationally, but at least nationally, and I haven't seen that framing, particularly in the national stories.

I have in the local stories though.

I mean, almost everyone has talked to the folks at Lifebanc who are stressing that this is really where, and we don't want this to dissuade other people from giving, and how it's really, really important right now for people to do more donating, not less, but you're right, the media has to be really careful with this one, but it's such an unusual story that has just captured people's imagination, and people are scratching their heads nationwide saying how'd that happen?

- [Ken] How did it happen?

(dramatic music) - Governor DeWine said the state could kick in some money to help renovate Progressive Field as lease extension talks for Cleveland's Major League Baseball team continue with the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, which owns the ballpark.

The current lease expires in 2023, and what's being discussed, DeWine said, is a 15 year extension, possibly longer.

There's been no discussion nor threat of the team leaving Cleveland.

That issue always becomes a focus when stadium improvements, or replacements are discussed.

So get ready for that too.

It opens up the frequently revisited conversation in Cleveland about whether taxpayers should be on the hook for arenas, where wealthy players compete and wealthy owners profit.

Should it be on them, or is it a worthwhile public investment to secure the benefits of professional sports in a city?

That conversation about to heat up again.

Last time we had it, I think, was when there was a renovation of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse Karen, the governor has not offered up any numbers specifically for what the state might kick in though.

- Yeah, he says he's still yet to have what he calls meaningful discussions with Senate President Matt Huffman, and House Speaker Bob Cupp, but you're right.

This is a constant debate over what taxpayers should be obliged to pay for when it comes to these projects, which are seen by some people as major downtown developments, and seen by other peoples as a draw against what should be spent by communities on other things.

And, in fact, there was a big discussion about this when I tweeted this out in my Twitter feed of people going back and forth with studies, and all sorts of things trying to back up their point of view.

And so this has been raging for a long time, but it's not unusual for the state, and for local governments to kick in this kind of money.

I mean, you think back to the Gateway Project when Progressive Field which was then Jacobs Field was originally created along with Gund Arena.

I mean, there was a lot of state investment in that.

And the state recently put money into the Crew Stadium, the Major League Soccer stadium here in Columbus, and also has helped the soccer team in Cincinnati with their stadium, so this is not unusual, but for some folks, I think, it's maybe a little bit of a surprise, 'cause didn't Progressive Field just get some big renovations?

And the idea that the team might be leaving, I think was kind of a jolt to a lot of people, though, DeWine has said the Dolans are committed to Cleveland.

The team is not leaving, but to even hear that, I think for some folks it was like, wait a minute.

We didn't even know that was a possibility.

- Well, and it isn't.

And I want to be careful about that when we say the team might be leaving 'cause no one's ever said that.

They've just said, we're gonna extend your lease.

It's up in 2023, we're gonna talk about it.

- That kind of came out of nowhere.

- But I think that that always comes whenever you talk about an extension even though no one has said it, that implicit hammer hanging over the whole thing is, well, they could leave.

And in Cleveland that place, we lost a football team.

- [Marlene] That threat, you should call it a threat, that implicit threat.

- That implicit threat.

Well, but it isn't a threat.

It's not being made it's there it hangs.

Like why would we want to talk about an extension because we might lose them.

And then it becomes this motivation, which is not necessarily real.

So it would be interesting to see how all of this plays out, and the debate about funding ballparks will continue, but I do want to say the governor has said emphatically that the team has not said anything about, hey, if this doesn't happen then that.

That's just never actually been made.

Ken, every time public money is used to help renovate, or build stadiums and ballparks, we do have this big question about whether it's the best use of those dollars.

Now there will be the argument that says, if you're not a Major League city, you're not gonna attract young professionals to come live downtown.

We're not gonna have that vibrancy.

It extends to the neighborhoods and the bars, and all these other things.

On the other hand, multi-multimillionaire players, and in many cases billionaire owners pony up for own.

- Yeah, yeah, this is a messaging one, right?

And you use the phrase, though, a worthwhile financial investment, and how we frame this one, too, is key, right?

So there are studies out there that say that having a Major League sports ball team really helps out, and not just in the employment, and in the surrounding area, but in particular with philanthropy, that these organizations do support a number of nonprofits, and their efforts, and partner up with a number of different organizations in the surrounding area, but as you mentioned in the opener, when we're looking at a severe lack of shelter of homes for individuals experiencing homelessness, and we look at the numbers of what that would cost compared to what might be spent on Progressive Field, how do you even put those two in the same sentence?

And so it's very confusing.

And the messaging is not clear at all on this one.

(dramatic music) - Cuyahoga County contracted to have 100 unhoused men stay at a Ramada Inn through the end of August to maintain social distancing that could not be achieved at shelters, but the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless says the county ended the contract early because of pressure from the mayor of Independence, who did not want the men at the hotel.

About half of the men say they are staying out of protest.

The money that was being used to pay for these hotels, which I know the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, isn't just swimming in money all the time, but there was pandemic money that came in, and this was a solution, we'll put these men in a hotel, which by the way has vacancy.

So it seemed like the right kind of solution, but city leaders didn't like it.

- And this has been brewing for a couple of months now.

This did not just come up this week.

It was just the deadline for eviction I guess we'll call it.

It came up this week.

Back in April, Mayor Kurtz there in Independent has been against this from the start.

He put out there in his newsletter months ago, not advising the city about this move in advance was disrespectful to our community.

So that's how he's framing it.

And so then you have all this information, or what people are putting out there that there's been an increase in police calls for this hotel, and the hotel manager who has worked there for over a decade, he has been there for over a decade, says there have been no more calls to this Ramada Inn then before these men moved in, but still you have the mayor who has been pushing back against this constantly, so.

This has been going on for months.

It seems like there are some messaging points there that might not be totally accurate.

- It would be one thing if there was something demonstrable, the men moved in and you're seeing all kinds of mayhem, but it seems to me, Marlene, that this really comes down to the way that unsheltered people are depicted, that they must be drug users.

And in many cases, some are, but they may somehow be up to no good.

They can't live in a facility, and be copacetic with the rest of the neighborhood.

That's really something that's being applied to them without any evidence ahead of time.

- Oh, so much bias just running through this story, right?

I mean, the fact that it's men, right?

First of all.

If this were like women and children who are unhoused, I think there would be a different reaction from the community there.

And, also, I'm kind of late to this story I have to admit, but when I saw the photos of the men who were saying, okay, we're not gonna leave.

I saw a lot of African-American men in that group, right?

So I wonder if there's some bias that's coming in from that community from the mayor 'cause what I was wondering as I was learning about this, what is it that's driving the mayor to be so against this from the beginning?

Is it your typical not in my backyard situation?

Is he getting some feedback from the local community folks 'cause politicians are often responsive to the people in their community, or did he just assume that the people in the community would not want this?

But it's just so interesting that the person who owns the hotel is like, listen, this helped me out through the pandemic.

It kept me afloat to have this money.

So they're not really being evicted by the person who owns the property.

You're being put out by the county, essentially, bowing to the pressure from the mayor who's saying we don't want this in our community.

- This would have ended anyway next month.

There was a contract that was supposed to go from April until I think August.

And they said, okay, we'll end it early.

In fact, it was supposed to be last month.

They got a one month extension, but the county did capitulate.

They said, okay, you don't want it, then we'll figure something else out.

And one of the things the county is doing, Ken, is buying another building downtown adjacent to 2100 Lakeside to expand that facility, which I just wonder about that.

We know of 2100 is where many men are dropped off when they leave incarceration and don't have anywhere to go, then there's a whole lot of people I've talked to that would prefer not to stay in the shelter because it isn't an ideal situation.

And now we're talking about expanding that.

What about the county's move there?

- It's gonna take time, right?

So there's a gap between talking about this story, and they need to do everything from renovating the buildings interior, making repairs, a whole new system for heating ventilation, and air conditioning.

And what takes usually the most amount of time getting city approval.

So this is not a stop gap in any way, because there's a gap in time between these plans, which will cost around $500,000.

And what's happening right now in Independence.

(dramatic music) - Ohio's Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced this week that 13 ballots cast during the 2020 presidential election had been referred to the attorney general for investigation as possible voter fraud.

That's 13 ballots out of nearly six million cast in Ohio, a fraction of a percent.

So what about all that voter fraud?

LaRose says the 13 referrals were from noncitizens who illegally cast a ballot.

In addition, he referred for investigation another 104 instances in which noncitizens registered to vote, but did not actually fill out a ballot.

They may not have intended to do something illegal, he said, for example, they may have become registered while legally renewing a driver's license.

LaRose declared that actual voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and 13 out of six million would seem to bolster that case.

Yet there are still many efforts to reform voting laws, and tighten restrictions in Ohio, and, of course, in other states.

Karen, LaRose says he makes these announcements to underscore the rarity of voter fraud, but activists say when he does that, it has the opposite effect they can say, look it, here are 13 people that are scamming the system.

- Yeah, but also secretaries of state do this report after every big election.

And in fact, when you look at previous reports, there was a report in 2018 that found 354 cases of noncitizens registering or voting.

385 cases of noncitizens registering or voting in 2016.

So it's way down.

When you look at this report, 117 noncitizens registering or voting.

Now, again, that is, this particular from the 2020 election is 0.0012%.

So we're talking minuscule percentage, but, of course, it's those numbers just that 13, that advocates on the Republican side typically will say, hey, there's still voter fraud.

Those people still did something they shouldn't have done, and we have to crack down on the system, but do you create laws that really crack down on those, that very, very small number, but potentially make it more difficult for other people who are following the rules to actually do the rules that are in place right now?

And do you put confusion in place when you change the rules when people are used to the way that things have been going?

That's really the issue here.

- All of these cases were noncitizens.

And in many of those cases, there might be people that just weren't aware that as a noncitizen you weren't allowed to register.

So those are gonna be looked at, or maybe not aware that you weren't allowed to vote.

We'll find out with those things, too, but we didn't see the orchestrated effort by this seedy underbelly of society where they're combing the computer records, and voting as dead people and those types of things, it just didn't happen.

- That's not a thing, it's not a thing, you know.

I mean, for all the people who have been talking about these, quote, audits, which are quote, these are not audits.

Audits are done after elections by certified people working with the government.

These are not the ones that are happening in Arizona.

That's not an audit, but there's that narrative out there that it's not a thing.

- And that's going to wrap up this week's show.

Make sure to subscribe to "After Jackson: Cleveland's Next Mayor" our comprehensive podcast on the Cleveland mayor's race.

New episodes drop every Wednesday, and appear on the Sound of Ideas.

Go to ideastream.org/afterjackson to subscribe.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

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