Editorial Roundup: Ohio

Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from Ohio newspapers:

Canceling Fairport Harbor Mardi Gras was correct decision

Willoughby News-Herald

April 11

Making a decision that is right doesn’t always make people happy.

That point was proven recently when the 2020 Fairport Harbor Mardi Gras was canceled because of concerns related to novel coronavirus.

The Fairport Mardi Gras Committee, in an April 4 Facebook post, announced its decision to cancel the festival in 2020.

In that post, Mardi Gras Committee President Shannon Barnhill said she and other members of the panel have been “closely monitoring the ever-evolving COVID-19 situation.”

“Unfortunately with the current projections, we believe it is in the best interest of the general public, our volunteers and vendors to cancel Fairport Mardi Gras for 2020,” Barnhill said. “While we are disheartened at the thought of a Fourth of July without our festival traditions, we feel that moving forward with #mg2020 would be a risk to the community that we work so hard for.”

The 2020 Mardi Gras festival had been slated for July 1 through July 5. An annual event dating back nearly 80 years, Mardi Gras traditionally begins with a parade, concludes with a fireworks display, and throughout its duration features plenty of rides, games, food and entertainment.

About 140 comments were posted on the Fairport Mardi Gras Facebook page over a three-day period in reaction to the committee’s decision to cancel the 2020 festival. The majority of those commenters expressed disappointment or sadness that it won’t happen this year, but also understood why event organizers took the action they did.

When The News-Herald posted its story on the Mardi Gras cancellation on Facebook, one commenter gave a more critical assessment of the committee’s verdict.

“Decided way too early,” the man said. “It is after all the beginning of April. Could have waited until June.”

However, it’s likely that anyone who shares that sentiment has never been involved in planning and carrying out a special event such as Mardi Gras.

Barnhill explained on Facebook that Mardi Gras is an event that requires months of preparation, to address topics such as theme planning and logos, and securing commitments from entertainers, advertisers, concession and ride operators, a fireworks-display company and parade participants.

“It’s not fair to all of them to cancel a week beforehand, or to ask our volunteers to put in numerous hours a week until July, when it’s pretty clear we’re not close to being out of the woods yet (with the COVID-19 pandemic),” she said.

In addition, Fairport Harbor Mayor Timothy Manross said it’s impossible to predict what social-distancing guidelines are going to be in July, when Mardi Gras would draw thousands of additional people into the village.

“You hope by then (socially distancing) will be less restrictive, but you don’t know for certain and can’t plan for it,” Manross said.

Based on all of the information that Mardi Gras Committee members had in front of them regarding the COVID-19 crisis, the group made the right choice to cancel this year’s festival, Manross said. He added that village government fully supports the group’s decision.

Mardi Gras Committee Vice President Karen Bidlack added that the group’s top priority for 2020 is to keep the public safe.

“We didn’t want to take the chance of prolonging the virus,” she said.

Let’s face it - right now, it’s anybody’s guess as to when COVID-19 will be declared under control and we can go back to living our lives normally and without restrictions here in Ohio.

Since there are no guarantees, we commend the Fairport Mardi Gras Committee for making a wise choice in canceling this year’s festival. The health and safety of everyone who would have attended the festival is far too important to jeopardize, in the event that COVID-19 still poses a threat in early July.

Although it wasn’t a popular decision, members of the all-volunteer Fairport Mardi Gras Committee made the correct move in canceling the 2020 festival. They now can redirect their energies on planning Mardi Gras for 2021, when hopefully COVID-19 will be nothing more than a distant memory.

Online: https://bit.ly/34Av1kR

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Lorain coronavirus survivor shares warning

The Lorain Morning Journal

April 11

People must heed the advice of government and health care officials in following measures to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus.

They also should listen to Lorain resident Cookie Villarreal, 69, who survived this nasty disease.

Villarreal began to fall ill at her Lorain home March 22.

By March 25, her husband, 67-year-old Joe Villarreal, said she couldn’t get out of bed and was taken to the ICU unit of Cleveland Clinic Richard E. Jacobs Health Center in Avon.

Cookie contracted COVID-19, but has very little memory of her experience with the virus.

She remembered having a really high fever, which started March 23.

Joe said when his wife couldn’t get out of bed March 25, he called the family doctor, who advised to take her to the hospital.

The Avon hospital took her right away.

Joe received a call from the hospital the following day to inform him that his wife had developed problems breathing and would be put on a ventilator.

She was so sick that her family and friends weren’t sure if she was going to survive.

As Cookie’s condition improved, doctors took her off the ventilator April 2 and transferred her from the ICU to an isolated room.

Once she was out of the ICU, she started looking through her phone and saw all kinds of messages.

Cookie acknowledges she’s lucky just to be alive.

As she reflects on her recovery, she said the team of nurses and doctors in the ICU were amazing.

Although her family was not with her in ICU, they were with her in spirit praying for her.

But Cookie said she will forever be grateful for the medical staff, and they will always be in her prayers.

And she returned home April 6, just in time for Easter.

The Villarreals have a stern message for people who are lackadaisical about COVID-19 and the dangers if people don’t follow social distancing protocol and proper hygiene.

They said people must listen to the experts and stay home when possible.

Officials had urged people to stay home even before Lorain County Public Health confirmed March 14 the first case of the coronavirus in the county.

David Covell, health commissioner at Lorain County Public Health, announced in a video that was uploaded through YouTube and posted on his agency’s website that it was only a matter of time until the virus would start infecting residents in this community.

Covell also discussed slowing the spread of the disease in an effort to protect the most vulnerable people.

He reiterated and urged people to cover their cough, wash their hands, stay home when sick, socially isolate themselves and practice social distancing when out in public.

These measures were important then and they are just as crucial today.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine extended his stay-at-home order from April 6 to May 1.

Although DeWine says the disease is not spreading as fast as officials thought it would, this is no time to let up.

People are still spreading the virus.

People are still dying from it.

One of the hot spots in Lorain County was the Main Street Care Center in Avon Lake.

On March 11, Main Street began prohibiting visitors, including family members, from its facilities to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

But that didn’t stop the coronavirus from infiltrating into the care center.

Paul Freeman, senior director of marketing for Main Street, said April 9 there were 17 active cases at the facility.

Freeman said executive management is working directly with Lorain County Public Health to follow all proper protocols.

The facility is utilizing appropriate personal protective equipment, isolating positive cases on a separate quarantine unit and have set up a specific facility team that only will care for COVID positive cases.

Freeman added Main Street is thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting all resident and common areas within its facilities to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards.

Covell said Lorain County Public Health also is working closely with the facility to control the spread of COVID-19.

The health department’s epidemiology team is in daily contact to help with isolation and quarantine, cleaning and testing.

Covell said the facility has been proactive in working with County Public Health to isolate both positive and symptomatic patients.

Education has been conducted with all facility staff regarding proper hand washing, transmission-based precautions and the appropriate use of personal protective equipment.

Lorain County Public Health reported April 10 there were 156 confirmed cases and six deaths in the county.

The report also said that 33 people have recovered, including Cookie Villarreal.

As officials have said and continue to say, we can’t let our guard down, not yet.

COVID-19 doesn’t care who is in its way.

But we should.

Online: https://bit.ly/2RCY962

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Projects progress despite pandemic

The Sandusky Register

April 12

The time to rebuild your community is when you can rebuild your community.

Those words and other similar sentiments have been spoken during meetings of the Register’s editorial board many times in the last five years, as the board discussed the newspaper’s reports about project after project getting the support of the Sandusky city commission and the Erie County commissioners, private developers and other public entities designed to re-define our city and build on its growing reputation as a destination place.

The time to rebuild your community is when you can rebuild it.

Since 2013, decisions have been made that enabled the reconstruction of Shoreline Drive and the Jackson Street Pier, the new City Hall complex at Columbus Avenue and Washington Row, the Marketplace at the Cooke center downtown, the Cedar Point sports complexes on Cleveland Road, other road projects both big and small, demolitions of hundreds of blighted properties, construction of addiction detox facilities and recovery centers in both Sandusky and Vermilion.

The amusement park/hospitality bachelor’s degree program through Bowling Green State University’s partnership with Cedar Point was to start bringing students - 200 of them - to its new downtown campus this spring. It’s one of those projects, especially, that will fundamentally change downtown Sandusky. The shutdown will impact that start, but it will not stop it.

There were plenty of naysayers: It’s too much, too fast. It’s too expensive. It won’t work. You can’t do that. That’s not how we do it around here. But the city, the county and the region persevered, leaders didn’t give up; they fought through the fog of negativity which was loud but with little depth. The time to rebuild your community is when you can rebuild your community.

The COVID-19 pandemic will challenge our country, our community and region in ways we have yet to fully comprehend. We, like everyone else, are hopeful we might be seeing its peak, and as it does we hope we can begin to return, cautiously, to a more normal way of life, forever changed perhaps by the best lessons we can learn from it as individuals, a community and a nation.

It might take months, it might take years to return to the prosperity there was here up until earlier this year, but we will be better prepared for that full recovery because of all that’s been accomplished the last five years, and by our diligence to stay safe and keep our distance in this moment that’s still occurring.

So many projects are continuing - fully funded - during this time, evidence that it is a better city, county and region because so many people worked together on so many projects. Our willingness to continue that cooperation through the pandemic will assure we recover in a similar powerful way.

Online: https://bit.ly/2Rzps0N

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Harsh coronavirus impact on African Americans in early data highlights need for more reporting transparency, health access

Cleveland Plain Dealer

April 12

There is no better evidence for why states, counties and municipalities need to up their game on COVID-19 reporting than the data showing that African Americans appear to be dying of the novel coronavirus and getting sick with it at disproportionate rates.

According to a recent Washington Post overview, just in the Midwest, blacks were making up 73 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, but only 26 percent of the population there, and 41 percent of deaths in Michigan but only 14 percent of the statewide population.

The disparities are less stark in Ohio and Cuyahoga County, but evident – and marked by an unacceptable level of unknowns that must be corrected.

The data also suggest racial disparities in health access — an issue highlighted by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams in a recent CBS interview.

Are poverty, crowded living conditions, a lack of primary health care, jobs that can put black people at greater risk for coronavirus and chronic health conditions also contributing?

Adams, 45, a seemingly fit officer, dramatically revealed in the CBS interview that he, too, has chronic health problems, a “legacy of growing up poor and black” in America, including high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, and a pre-diabetic condition. This highlights, Adams added, the need not just for greater health equity for Americans of color but also fuller national reporting on the COVID-19 crisis.

We concur. The city of Cleveland, for instance, has failed to offer any demographic breakout for its 254 cases and two deaths as of Friday. Racial breakouts are needed in this heavily black city.

Nationally, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced it will start adding racial demographics to its weekly mortality and morbidity report.

Cuyahoga County, for the first time, revealed racial details on its COVID-19 cases last week — but not on deaths. That data also are needed.

In Cuyahoga County, 39 percent of those with confirmed coronavirus cases self-identified as black, the county revealed Friday. That’s nearly a third higher than would be expected given the county’s 30 percent black population.

But in 10 percent of cases, the race is unknown, said Dr. Heidi Gullett, the county board of health’s medical director, warning that impairs officials’ ability to interpret the data.

Statewide, the reporting deficiencies are even more severe, even as the racial disproportion appears greater. As of Friday, 20 percent of Ohioans with confirmed COVID-19 cases self-identified as black — versus just a 13 percent black population. That’s a nearly 54 percent higher incidence than the population as a whole would suggest. Yet the overall picture is distorted by 20 percent of cases being of unknown race.

Similar unknowns exist when it comes to COVID-19 deaths in Ohio, with the 13 percent black mortality roughly tracking the percentage of blacks in the population, but with 21 percent unknown. One bright point: The percentage of racial “unknowns” in Ohio’s COVID-19 data appears to be going down slowly but steadily.

What does all this tell us?

First, that Cleveland and Cuyahoga County — and other counties and municipalities with large black and nonwhite populations — must start reporting both COVID-19 mortality and case data by race immediately.

Second, that Ohio officials should insist — with a public health order if needed — on more detailed case reporting from doctors and hospitals. Hospitals and medical offices must ensure that patients make some kind of entry on race on admittance forms. That would include “refused to answer.”

Third, that hospitals in this state need to improve the speed and consistency of their COVID-19 reporting. Hospitals in Ohio are not directly regulated by the state (unlike in most states) but they still must register annually and comply with certain reporting requirements, often coordinated through the Ohio Hospital Association. OHA, however, has not been coordinating hospitals’ COVID-19 case reporting, according to spokesman John Palmer; if that kind of coordinated reporting would expedite and add accuracy and consistency to the COVID-19 reporting, OHA should do so.

Fourth, that after the COVID-19 crisis subsides, this nation, this state, this county, this city needs to take a deep dive into the health disparities, health-access and health-equity deficiencies by race that the COVID-19 deaths and case numbers appear to highlight.

In Cuyahoga County, an intensive effort is underway to peel back the possible racial “implicit” bias in health care that could underlie persistent, elevated levels of black infant mortality — in this county and elsewhere — that do not trace to income or health access disparities, as was once believed.

With COVID-19 data now highlighting the breadth and depth of such apparent health inequities, this has become an issue of equity and access that we must address promptly as a society, and act to correct.

Online: https://bit.ly/2K3klSs

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If you can help, support our nonprofit heroes during coronavirus pandemic

Akron Beacon Journal

April 11

There are many heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic among us.

The doctors, nurses and others working in our hospitals and nursing homes to care for the hundreds of local residents sickened by the coronavirus and other health challenges surely top the list.

Our first responders who always run toward danger continue to do just that with every call for help, not knowing if the next person they meet will be infected by an invisible and deadly virus.

And then there are non-profit organizations that remain operational and serving the rapidly growing needs of local citizens, often in challenging social-distancing situations.

Every person completing these and other “essential” jobs is taking considerable personal risk to not only themselves but their families when they return home.

A hearty thank you does not seem sufficient, even though we know acts of gratitude are appreciated.

With the general public essentially quarantined at home and volunteers asked to stay away despite a tremendous increase in need, we’re especially concerned about the ability of non-profits to continue their efforts.

They need our assistance more than ever, especially if you remain fortunate enough to have the means with which to help.

While there are many worthy efforts you could support, we will highlight three we believe broadly support Greater Akron.

The United Way of Summit County has established the COVID-19 Emergency Fund as part of a broad collaboration with the city of Akron, Summit County, Summit County Public Health, Akron Public Schools, Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank and the Summit County Department of Job and Family Services.

This fund represents the most diversified way to make a difference with money raised being allocated to the deserving agencies. Donations for food are being earmarked to the food bank, for example, while funds for shelter or rent assistance are being managed through the United Way’s Housing Services. Donations also can be targeted toward child and support assistance, health care assistance, and greatest needs.

The United Way says 100% of donations will be distributed. As of March 30, the fund had already generated $400,000 and was distributing the first $170,000.

“Time is of the essence here,” said Jim Mullen, president and CEO of United Way of Summit County. “The facts on the ground change every day, and we want to make sure we are providing agencies with the funds to make a difference as this crisis unfolds.”

The aforementioned food bank is facing its most challenging crisis ever with the sharp rise in unemployment. Many people seeking food have never sought assistance before, with demand actually shrinking the agency’s food reserves by 30% in March as a record 3.6 million pounds of food were distributed.

Although there is no immediate funding or food supply danger, cash donations allow the agency to purchase food at bulk and make the most effective use of resources.

The good news is 35 Ohio National Guard soldiers continue to replace volunteer labor while the federal government has waived collection of information from recipients, which required staffers to violate social distancing guidelines.

Online: https://bit.ly/2Xxozda

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