Name: Coronavirus in Ohio: Medical experts weren’t in charge in setting reopening guidelines
Brand: dispatch.com
SKU: dispatch-com-25
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Coronavirus in Ohio: Medical experts weren’t in charge in setting reopening guidelines

preview

Patrick Cooleypcooley@dispatch.comView CommentsBusiness leaders drove the panels that established guidelines for reopening Ohio's economy while doctors and disease experts took a secondary role.Now, with the number of coronavirus cases spiking, health officials are wondering if that was a mistake.The 16-member panel that came up with casino guidelines, for example, included 12 casino industry officials and three medical experts. The 22-member restaurant advisory group has 16 industry officials and four medical experts.With coronavirus cases continuing to rise Sunday, some medical experts say reopening guidelines fall short.According to the Ohio Department of Health, 854 new confirmed and probable cases of the virus had been confirmed as of 2 p.m. Sunday, bringing the state’s total to 50,309. Three additional deaths were reported, bringing the state’s total to 2,807.Saturday, there were 819 new confirmed and probable cases reported.Industry officials said they drew their reopening recommendations from state and federal guidelines as well as restrictions in other states, in order to ensure safety and consistency.Business leaders, who say they understand the details of their businesses, developed guidelines to reopen following Gov. Mike DeWine’s March 23 stay-at-home order, said Dan Tierney, press secretary for the governor.“Not every restaurant is the same, but you can take these best practices and apply them to different environments,” Tierney said.He stressed that officials from the governor’s office and the Ohio Department of Health were involved in approving the guidelines.But Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser, a doctor of internal medicine at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, thinks health care professionals should have led the panels.“This isn't primarily a business crisis, this is first and foremost a public health crisis,” he said. “And one would assume the most effective and the safest guidelines would be those written by health professionals rather than business professionals.”Infectious-disease experts who reviewed the guidelines mostly supported what the panels came up with. But industry officials and medical experts differed on one key facet of the reopening: masks. Doctors recommend universal mask use while Ohio’s reopening guidelines make them mandatory for nearly all workers but voluntary for customers.“We need to have a high percentage of people wearing masks,” said Dr. Thomas File, chairman of the infectious-disease division at the Summa Health hospital system in Akron.Masks provide only minimal protection to the wearer, File said, but have proven effective at preventing an infected person from spreading coronavirus. Asymptomatic carriers can still spread the disease, making face coverings especially important, he said.“It's important for mask use to be consistent and widespread and vigilant,” Gonsenhauser said.Earlier this spring, DeWine backed away from requiring customers of restaurants and retail stores to wear masks after a backlash from a vocal group of Ohioans who felt he was infringing on their rights.Gonsenhauser attributed the lack of mask wearing in part to the lack of a mandate.“When we don't make (wearing masks) a state-led guideline, and it's left for people to make their own judgments, I think we see how rapidly individuals regress back to their norm,” he said.Health care professionals also generally support requiring restaurants and bars to space tables six feet apart, but they stress that the six-foot distance doesn’t guarantee safety.Dan Reinhard, formerly general counsel for Jack Entertainment, which has a casino and a racino in northeast Ohio, chaired the panel that came up with casino guidelines. He stressed that health care professionals checked the panel’s restrictions before the state approved them.“They were reviewing (our recommendations) iteration by iteration,” he said.Medical experts say the guidelines also are deficient in another key category: tracking infections.Mark Cameron, an infectious-disease researcher for Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, reviewed a paper written by several Ohio gym owners that ultimately served as the model for reopening workout facilities.While the paper recommended a litany of mitigation techniques, it didn’t include a plan if a gym is identified as a source of infection, he said.“They need to recognize that the business is part of a larger community, and how does that business interact with local health authorities if they have discovered there are symptomatic cases?" Cameron asked.Jim Hofstetter, owner of 614Fitness on the North Side and one of the gym owners who wrote the recommendations, said the guidelines instruct gyms to have customers sign in, which would help with contact tracing in the event that an infection is linked to the facility.Working with health care officials is part of his gym’s informal policy, he said, but he supports adding such a policy to the formal guidelines. He said gyms will do so if local health departments deem that necessary.pcooley@dispatch.com@PatrickACooleyView Comments

Patrick Cooleypcooley@dispatch.comView CommentsBusiness leaders drove the panels that established guidelines for reopening Ohio's economy while doctors and disease experts took a secondary role.Now, with the number of coronavirus cases spiking, health officials are wondering if that was a mistake.The 16-member panel that came up with casino guidelines, for example, included 12 casino industry officials and three medical experts. The 22-member restaurant advisory group has 16 industry officials and four medical experts.With coronavirus cases continuing to rise Sunday, some medical experts...

Coronavirus in Ohio: Medical experts weren’t in charge in setting reopening guidelines

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS