With Ohio's coronavirus (COVID-19) outlook having improved, the next natural question is when will the state be returning to normal, everyday life?
But appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Monday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine warned that it may not be as simple as doing just that.
“I will say this, that going out of this thing is going to be just as tough, if not tougher, than going into it and closing things down,” DeWine said. "It's going to be a series of decisions that we're making but I think every governor right now is thinking, 'How do we open up? How do we do this?'"
DeWine's comments come less than a week after Ohio shared its modeling now shows the state is projected to peak with 1,600 daily cases in mid-April -- down from its previous projection of 10,000 daily cases. But while DeWine and Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton have both warned that the state needs to maintain its physical distancing practices to maintain that projection, the governor has also shared that the state has begun working on its plans for a slow rollout into the recovery phase.
As for what that plan will look like, DeWine said he'll share more details this coming week. But he did reveal on MSNBC that advances in both testing and a potential vaccine will be crucial in determining the speed of the rollout.
“There are people who are particularly vulnerable, [who] from a medical point of view are going to have to be very, very, very careful,” he said. “I think that sometimes we all think we’re going to turn a switch and we’ll get back to normal, and that’s just not going to happen. We're going to have to slowly do this."
Last week, multiple Ohio Republicans called on DeWine to begin reopening the economy over concerns regarding the state's historic unemployment. Dating back to the discovery of Ohio's first positive coronavirus case on March 9, DeWine has put a number of measures in place to encourage physical distancing, including a stay-at-home order that has been in effect since March 23 and that's currently slated to run until May 1.
As of Sunday, Ohio has reported 6,604 positive coronavirus cases, 1,948 of which have resulted in hospitalization, 595 ICU admissions and 253 deaths.