Someone who had been on the board of elections. Who had been prominent in the republican party. Respected andll liked by everyone who knew him fran and i, don and tina, all of us extend to the wagoner family our deepest timothy. Wife, we are so very sorry. To his children, mark and greg and jenniferedith and nicholas their fatherinlaw and to his seven beloved grandchildren. When we hear about this, these deaths, and other states, we have about them in ohio, many times we will not know that individual. It will be another number. Think it is important for us to remember that each time we hear about a new death, it is someone who was loved. Someone who lived their life, someone who wants to live longer. Someone who was cherished. By the people and community. With theronted finality of death, and our judeochristian tradition, we often turn to the scripture for comfort. The 23rd psalm. Funerals andead at tells us, though i walk to the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil. For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff comfort me. Is beginning of the psalm also wellknown. The lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. My fellow ohio citizens, it may seem like we are living in the valley of death. Living seem like we are in the valley of that shadow. But we will get through this. We will get through this. The sun will shine again. It will be spring again. Wonderful, good for, state of ohio. I want to take a moment because the story of the nursing home in miami county. And i think of all the First Responders. Time of crisis like this, but also every day, they risk their lives. I want to thank them. I want to thank all of our First Responders. I want to thank he won the medical community. Everyone who is working, battling, to keep people alive. Working so hard in preparing what will be coming in the days and weeks ahead. You are our heroes. Grateful for everything you are doing. Whore grateful for everyone is working so hard as we go through these difficult times to keep ohio moving. Whether it is feeding us, clothing us, making sure we have the medical care that we need, thank you. Of each and everyone of you. I am grateful for what you do. We have a few announcements today. I want to start by thanking the chief justice who was here yesterday. Said, the directive she sent out. Today. And i would appeal to all of our judges, all those involved in our judicial system, to heed the words of the chief justice. To do everything you possibly can not to have gatherings of people at the courthouse. Continue justice must continue. She has put out a logical, well reasoned directive. I would ask everyone to please, please follow that, for the safety of all of our citizens. Let me talk a moment. Purcell was here yesterday and talked about the department of aging. I want to announce an executive order i am signing today, that will go into effect at close of business monday. Close of business monday. First, this affects our Senior Citizens centers. They are often the heart of the community and do so much good. Often,ave talked about it is a sick nick at risk for anyone to be in a group setting. Our it is this significant risk for anyone to be in a group setting, including our Senior Citizens. These centers will close on monday at close of business. Of i am assured that each our Senior Citizen centers has taken care to make sure that the congregant feeding program where the seniors gather for lunch, that the seniors, the same seniors, will be able to get this food and that will be delivered to their homes. So i am grateful for everyone, the volunteers and everyone, who has worked so hard to make that happen. Other services that can be provided by the senior center, the Senior Citizen center, can still be provided and we hope will be provided. Transportation i know is so very important. Our local Senior Centers i am for miller within Greene County they provide transport for seniors to doctors appointment i am familiar with, they provide transports for seniors to doctors and import things in their life. We would hope these would continue and Senior Citizens would continue to be helped. That the centers would continue to help our seniors by doing that. Let me also talk about another part of the executive order. We talked about this yesterday. That is our senior day care centers. These centers provide very, important care for some of our seniors, those who cannot stay at home by themselves and those who live generally with Family Matters family members. This provides assistance for seniors and family members. Our grave concern is about the danger of those seniors being together. And the spread of disease. The spread of this virus. So these will also be closing on monday. We have been telling these providers that the states coming. Ursula assures me they have made provision for each of our seniors. We wanted to give a few more days, now that we are making the final order, and order we have been signaling for some time. Today making the final order. So, we believe that by close of business monday, each one of those seniors, who is getting service, will also be able to continue to get service in a different setting. Throughout this crisis, i have safety ofalance the the people of the state of ohio, but also tried to achieve a continuation of essential services, a continuation of allowing people, when possible, to continue to make a living and provide for their family. And to keep our economy moving. I am fully aware that some of our orders have caused people to lose their jobs. I fully understand that. Each one of those orders was thought out, agonized over. I made those decisions because i felt that the evidence was abundantly clear that those decisions would save lives, would protect lives. News, stepsg in the taken by other states. Pennsylvania, california, in regard to the closing of additional businesses. Work to find the right balance. Let me say that i want to thank the businesses in this state that have gone out of their way. They have done everything they could to comply with the best safety precautions, separating making sure their sanitizer everywhere, making sure when that employee comes in , theres a discussion with the employee, how are you feeling . Our u. K. Are you ok . Businesses have asked employees to take their temperature at home. Businesses with thermometers can take temperatures as they come in. We have real heroes out there in the Business Community who are really focusing on that. I think you. So i thank you. What you do every day is saving lives. There is no doubt about that. Also continue to morningand more this emails, tex, from employees, from people who have observed what is going on in other businesses. Emails and texts about businesses that are not complying. Businesses that are recklessly risking the lives of their employees and their ploys families and the families of their employees. And everyone that the employees and their families come into contact with. This simply must stop. I implore you. Please. Do what is right. Continue to balance my response ability to the people , responsete of ohio billetingi took in oath of office to do the essential thing government does. That is to protect the people. As i balance that with our attempt to keep this economy moving, let me make it very, very clear. On the side of protecting people. So, no announcement today. Behavior, the reckless behavior, must stop. And i congratulate all of those who are out there, who are making a difference every day. The businesses that are mindful of what they need to do to protect their employees. Evidence shows when businesses do this, when they are very, very, aggressive. They can protect their employees. Ask, please, do that. I continue to balance this. I continue to look at this every single day, and make the decisions which i think are in the best interests of the people of the state of ohio. The sanctity of life, the production of life. , ishe protection of life the most important obligation that i have. Ask dr. Acton to come up and give her update on what she is seeing around the state of ohio. Thank you, governor. Good afternoon, everyone. I share again my deepest to the wagoner family. Today we have one hunter 629 illness onset from 91ruary 7 to march 18, age 1 of 49. With a median age our first death and 100 hospitalizations. 69 females and 100 males. We now have cases documented across counties. To the media you might hear stories of other deaths and those investigations are still ongoing. I want to take a moment to talk about the incredible work being done around the nursing home in miami county, and by the local health department, the Health Commissioner and his colleagues in nearby counties. This is a difficult situation. I want to speak about our Frontline Health care workers. The folks in who work in Nursing Homes. I can imagine how fearful it is and how afraid families are when you share an outbreak or someone you love is. ,nd the people doing this work are going to be exposing themselves, to covet. And they are still coming and going into work. Going to be exposing themselves to the 19. Covid. A picture im going to post on our website, beautiful illustration of these folks on the front lines. These are the folks who work in Nursing Homes, who are facing stigma just because people know they work in a nursing home. It is the opposite. These folks are following all of the rules we set for them. We need to thank them every second and help them keep doing their job. It is so vitally important. Especially in a situation where people are scared, as in this particular location, that we bolster everything. That we drop off more food. I heard a sad story of a bakery delivery that was stopped out of fear. That is the opposite of what we should be doing. That is not science. That is fear. We need to make those deliveries. We need to deliver that food. We need to encircle that community with all of the help we can give them. So i want to thank everyone out there on the front lines, of what is our first nursing home cluster. I also want to thank the people working in my Emergency Operating Center. I visited the Emergency Operating Center yesterday to me with my team, and teams from across the state, who do the incident command structure, to help those on the front lines. One of the hard things about this is we will have many Different Things going on around the state at one time. Essentialalso workers, who have to come every riskwho face, again, the of infection spread. They follow all of the protocols as a doing business. But they have to keep showing up. Just like our hospitals and our nursing home have to keep coming to work every day. Our people delivering food have to keep coming. We thank you. We will do every thing we can to support the folks who need to be there. And the rest of us staying home now is absolutely essential. I will stop therefor today. Everyone,remind please keep going for good information. There is so much misinformation out there now. Navirus. Ohio. Gov. Our helpline, we take your calls as quickly as we can. There might be where is that you have and you can reach out if you feel you need to talk to someone. You are not alone could we are physical distancing, we are not social distancing and we will reach out to help each other. 4askodh if you need to talk. Thank you. Good afternoon. Start by expressing condolences to the wagoner family. And iagoner was a friend had appointed him to the board of election when i was secretary of state. He loved his country. Hisoved to state and community and certainly his family. And he will be missed. To start off i want to focus on toouple of things happening help employers and it plays in the state. As you know the governor, governor dewine, clara state emergency in ohio. Authority, that through that authority, the department of insurance is allowing is issuing an order requirement for insurers in the state that would allow employers to take care of their employees with a grace. For insurance premiums. For insuranceod premiums. It is for all Health Insurers and must provide the option of deferring premium payments, interestfree, for up to 60 calendar days. From the original premium due date. Defereans employers can their premium payments. For Health Insurance for up to two months. We hope this will give them leave during this time and Health Insurers must allow employers to continue covering employees even if the employee would otherwise become ineligible because of a decrease in the hours they worked per week. They will be issuing details of , sometime within the next human its i hope. Let me also, we have had questions about unemployment and who is eligible. With otherwine along inns leave washington, governor dunn leavy of alaska and Governor Pritzker of illinois of washingtone sent a letter asking present trump to unlock funding in the declare account, to disaster and make funding available for 1099 or other types of employees who currently are ineligible for unemployment or to ask congress to make this , critically,able for the prompt relief we need for these employees. Importantcredibly that the federal government step in and help us serve these people who are displaced by the circumstances we confront in the of the as a result actions taken to protect our health and safety. On a bit of hopeful news, the governor has really asked the educators of the state to do all they can in this interim time. Sure learning continues in our schools. Washe last one for hours i contacted by hilliard superintendent on the governors workforce board and he explained they are doing great at distancelearning at hilliard. They have over 16,000 students a day login to participate in school. To count as participating you have to actually login and do your work. You need to submit the work your teachers have asked you to submit. It is stunning, the great work they have done their. There. Yesterday they had 16,000 students logged in. Their average february attendance was over 15,000. Administratorsd are embracing this and teachers are calling students to make sure theyre getting them involved, and students and families are responding at a normally in the month preceding. It is just one case. But i like to highlight it to show it is possible and that our educators and families are taking education seriously. It is super important. Other schools around the state are doing this and all educators are to be commended because they had to turn this around quickly. They find out at the end of one week and many of these schools, by the beginning or middle of the next week, had the services up and running. Add business best practices. The governor talked about his enormous responsys ability to find the balance between the health needs of the people of our state and the economic and business and work needs of the people of our state. Hours or 48t 24 hours, we have been in touch with lots of businesses asking andbest practices, imploring or demanding that they execute the best practices. I will take the liberty for any business person who does not know exactly what we are talking about, to hear these once again. Businesses are taking the temperature of employees if they have that capability at work. Or before they go into work. Theyre asking employees to do that at home if they do not have the capacity. They are dedicating people to specifically clean all of the service surfaces of a door handles, rails, all the things where someone might touch them. Theyre adding dedicated personnel to clean those surfaces. The removing chairs from areas where they too close together and where people could congregate. They are staggering breaks and lunch areas so people do not congregate in one location. They are carrying out the six foot rule. I know one suggestion we had from a Small Business that they did, coffee shop, we do not want people with carry out business and Delivery Business we do not want people congregating tightly in line. They put pieces of tape on the floor with a sign that says every six feet please respect one another. Thatdy is capable of doing who is similarly situated. They have asked employees to stay at home after work and not travel outside of the workplace. If anyone is exhibiting symptoms, they sent them home immediately. Many businesses have gone to a shifts and be shifts so they can spread out the number of employees. They might have one group work during the day and the other group work in the evening so they can avoid tight congregations. People have also identified an individual at their particular facility, or in a part of their facility, to be in charge of enforcement of these rules. To own it. To make sure that the rules they establish are being implanted systemwide. They are making sure there is available sanitizing supplies for employees. They are banning any gatherings without personal spacing. We see that here in the statehouse when there are meetings that go on where you have to spread people out so they are not close together. No Community Gathering space. You may have a coffee maker where people gather, no more, you cannot have people going in to the same location and gathering without it cleaned and sanitized. No sharing equipment without it first being disinfected. We all talk that about all the time, washing her hands and not touching her face. These are all things employers are doing to make sure theyre acting responsible as the governor noted, he and i both get these messages. For those of you who are doing these, keep doing them. For those of you who are not, youre acting irresponsibly and putting us in jeopardy and it needs to stop. Grocery stores. Talking with Grocery Stores over the last 24 hours. There are they are all hiring , in some cases offering bonuses for people working there and people who will sign on with them. They are essential to our supply chain and they ask everybody be notent and cooperative and and do not fail to treat the other employees or customers with respect. We have to respect each other. That brings me to a final couple of points. One of these Grocery Stores told me about literally a fight breaking out between customers over toilet paper. Over toilet paper. Folks. We have to be better than that. We have to be better than that. We have to treat peo