CLEVELAND — Fresh off of making a sweeping set of reopenings for many of Ohio's businesses and services, Gov. Mike DeWine sat down for a one-on-one interview with 3News' Russ Mitchell on Friday afternoon.
The two touched on a variety of topics related to the state's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
On balancing the threat of the virus and the economic impact of the measures the state has taken to fight it.
"These are all tough decisions. It's a risk whatever we do," said DeWine. "It's a risk if we just keep the economy shut down because we know there's not only economic consequences, people unemployed, but there's medical consequences, there's health consequences when the economy goes down like that."
President Trump has said that everyone who wants a test can have a test, do you agree with that as far as Ohio is concerned?
"That's not the case yet for Ohio. The White House has been very helpful in getting our tests up. We're now running close to 8,000 tests a day, we want to be much, much higher than that. We now have the capacity for 14,000 to 16,000 per day."
Are you optimistic that students will be returning to school this fall?
"I don't think we know, frankly. What I think schools need to do is plan to go back. We hope we're back in school in August and September and we're rolling. But school will certainly be different. We know that the virus, barring some miracle, the virus is going to be very much with us in the fall. So the schools need to be planning on if they're in session, physically, how do they do it? How do they keep distance? How do they do everything that they can? And I know schools are working very, very hard on that and trying to figure out exactly how they can do that."
MORE: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tells 3News schools should plan to go back in fall, but not sure if they will
Would you feel comfortable sending your grandchildren to a daycare at the end of this month?
"If I had a choice, I would not do it. Now, a lot of people don't have a choice. And so what we have tried to do is make it as safe as humanly possible."
You can watch the entire interview in the player below: