good morning thank you for joining our
briefing and thank you to Jay and Vicki
for interpreting for us this morning
we're first going to run through the
numbers as we always do related to Covid-19
here in Hamilton County as of this
morning cases stand at two thousand
seven hundred and forty-one who have
tested positive for Covid-19
hospitalizations are up to 549 and
tragically 156 of our neighbors have now
died from Covid-19 the delta is there
for those that tested positive between
now and our last briefing is 166
the hospitalizations rate at 84 is the
change and the change in deaths is 21 so
that's a week worth of data but before
we get into our conversation with Greg
Kesterman the Health Commissioner for
Hamilton County Commissioner Parks has
joined me this morning we would like to
take a minute to talk about the death of
George Floyd and our community's response
to what we are seeing in this
community over the last few days the
death of George Floyd is tragic and
unacceptable justice for his family and
friends should be fair and swift the
officers need to be held accountable for
their actions
at the same time we need to confront the
systemic racism that leads to poor
health economic disparities violence and
unjustified deaths of black citizens in
this country
Victoria Parks is going to join the
conversation this morning and talk about
some of the things that she is doing to
address some of the concerns of folks in
the community her approach is thoughtful
it includes best practices and it will
be collaborative and so I'm gonna let
her expound upon that but I'm very
grateful that she is leading the charge
here at Hamilton County as for
Cincinnati and what's happening outside
our building protests outside the
courthouse yesterday and today were
peaceful the Sheriff's office and CPD
have done a good job of avoiding
escalation our priority needs to be
keeping everyone safe including the
protesters and law enforcement last
night we had one arrest outside the
building it was for young Billy was a
young man who was violating curfew and
that was all that happened in the
vicinity of the the county complex down
here I do want to say that after the
first night of unrest I did come down
the next morning and walk Court Street
and you know was witness to the broken
glass you know it's
it's it's it's difficult to see that
especially when these business owners in
this community are trying to gradually
restart and come out of the isolation
that we've experienced because of Covid-19 and so when you talk to these
business owners you know they're really
struggling some of them were open some
of them are outside sweeping up the
glass and some of them had their regular
clients coming in and purchasing you
know it was a in this particular case it
was a deli and their customers were
coming in and so you know people they're
hearty he's right there there they're
still doing business but the destruction
that happened is just setting things
back in extremely unfortunate so I think
what we've got happening here is
peaceful protests during the day and
things become violent at night and
that's really unfortunate because it
really does take away from what we are
trying to understand the peaceful
protest is all about the next day after
the the group had moved up to Clifton
Heights walk that area less damage but
still challenging for the business
owners up in that area and for the
community it's it's a it's
challenging because we're in this weird
time of trying to respond safely to Covid-19
and having a lot of you know
protests in the city so I do want a
level set you know it's it's just been a
challenging time and I think we all need
to step up step into this space and try
to be responsive so yesterday
importantly we at the county rolled out
our priorities for the CARES Act money
and we've talked about this before I'm
not going to go into a great deal of
detail but we do have these dollars and
remember they're responsive to Covid-19
they're restricted dollars from the
federal government and so we've we've
dropped that money into four different
buckets the first one is related I think
we've
got slides related to our public health
response and so and I'm just going to
breeze through these the the big
tranches are going to the procurement of
PPE protective personal equipment masks
gowns for first responders hospitals
folks on the ground doing the work and
then also for testing and the Health
Commissioner is going to talk to us
about the importance of testing and we
have made a significant commitment there
of nineteen million dollars to make sure
that we have appropriate and accessible
testing in this community especially for
those vulnerable populations that
perhaps live in congregate care settings
and really are subject to the spread of
Covid-19 the second bucket it talks
about vulnerable populations this is
where the homeless resheltering money
is coming from the third bucket talks
about the community and economic
development response and so this is
where we've got the small business
assistance dollars we're doing a rental
assistance program I'm going to get it
into that in a second with a little bit
of detail but those dollars are coming
from this bucket and then there is also
a large chunk of money that's been set
aside for local communities remember
there are 49 jurisdictions in Hamilton
County and they also have seen reduction
in revenue and escalation and costs
related to Covid-19 and they have not
received any money yet from the federal
government or the state government
candidly I've spoken with state
officials as recently as last night and
there is a bill moving in the
legislature right now I think we're all
hopeful that it will pass this week and
that will provide some of that funding
to the local communities there's talk
about one tranche or two tranche I can't
I can't talk in detail about that
because nobody knows how this is going
to go but the good news is that that
money and that response is coming and so
we are holding these dollars aside until
we have a better understanding of what
the actual need is in all 49
jurisdictions and then we will hopefully
be in a position to fill the gap to help
those communities and then the fourth
bucket this is about County operations
we talked about this
about you know public safety personnel
about retrofitting our buildings about
keeping our buildings safe for both the
public and our own employees so that
some of the personnel issues that we've
got here so anyway that that's the
fourth bucket and I don't want to go
into any more detail because there's so
much to talk about today so anyways that
we did that yesterday it was a unanimous
decision by the board and we will
continue to adjust as need be
like to focus for just a second on the
rental assistance program I've gotten a
lot of calls about this and so I'm going
to give a little bit of detail and then
hopefully get to it as the program
starts to roll out the rental and
utility assistance program will employ
the services of organizational partners
to administer rental and utility
assistance to Hamilton County residents
who cannot pay rent due to decrease in
income as a result of Covid-19 it is
proposed to allocate up to 3.5 million
of the 5 million earmarked in the CARES
Act funding towards the initial effort
so that's the first tranche the
remaining 1.5 will be set aside for
additional resource needs identified
related to eviction prevention there
are some programs that have already
started in this county and so there are
partnerships that we are forming with
Aftab Pureval Clerk of Courts with the help
center
Greg Landsman and has been involved
at City Hall we need to make sure that
we're folding in to efforts that are
already underway and so we're reserving
some money to help in that space and
we'll have more about that at another
time so we are going to put out an RFP
for the initial tranche the 3.5 and have
organizations in this community that work
in that space respond to the RFP to be
clear they then will administer the
program they're already set up to do
this work we suspect it might be more
than one organization just because we
need to have the capacity to get the
money out as quickly as possible and to
be clear then the rental assistance will
go from those organizations straight to
the landlord to pay for that rent or the
utility costs that have been unable to
be paid by the folks that are renting
because of Covid-19 that gives you an
idea of the program we are very close to
rolling this out and I tell you what I
will get back with details next week
I've got them but I again I'm feeling
like we've got so much to talk about
this morning that we'll let's get to
that detail after the RFP goes out and I
can explain
who
qualifies and how to tap in to those
resources all right so with that we're
gonna go first to Greg Kesterman the
Commissioner of Health
a lot has been happening in the space of
Public Health given what's happening at
the state level of course and also
what's happening in our own community so
a Greg is going to give us an update
thanks Greg Thank You commissioner and
good morning I'd like to start off by
extending my personal and Hamilton
County Public Health's
sympathies to the family of George Floyd
this is an unthinkable tragedy as an
agency we support our communities by
promoting health equity and celebrating
diversity and inclusion we will continue
to work tirelessly on these efforts
Commissioner Driehaus moments ago shared
some of the numbers for Hamilton County
I always like to include the number of
individuals that have recovered thus far
of the cases that are within our
jurisdiction which excludes Cincinnati
Norwood and Springdale we have one
thousand four hundred and eighty cases
of which 686 individuals have recovered
while we're starting to open things
back up in Ohio and we're all starting
to go out and about more away from our
houses our kids have practices beginning
and families are starting to do more
shopping and and and leaving the home
it's really important to remember that
Covid-19 is still with us
it hasn't left it's still here the same
precautions that I've been talking about
throughout this pandemic I'm gonna
briefly go over and if you're planning
to participate in any first amendment
opportunities and gatherings it's really
important to remember these as well it's
it's important to keep yourself safe
when you're out and about so first and
foremost is social distancing obviously
if you're gathering in a crowd social
distancing becomes harder but it is
still possible to leave space between
groups of people and if you're at higher
risk if you're over 65 years of age or
have underlying health conditions
consider maybe not being up in the front
consider maybe taking yourself in a spot
where you can create some social
distance
never forget that there are asymptomatic
carriers among us so there are people
that don't show any symptoms and can be
sick and these are all kinds of folks
from young to old and it's important to
remember that if you're out and about
you might be asymptomatic that's where
these face masks come in in handy and
are very important wearing that mask
protects the people around you
so we really are still encouraging if
you're at the grocery store if you're at
a mass gathering if you're doing any of
these activities and you can't social
distance we really want you to wear
those face masks and then lastly just
continuous hand-washing whenever you can
take a moment to wash your hands if you
don't have access because you're not
near a sink certainly hand sanitizer is
a great solution and we would encourage
you to do that so I'd like to talk a
little bit more about the data with
regards to current trends I'm cautiously
optimistic as we see case counts remain
flat deaths remain flat and
hospitalizations remain flat that we're
doing a good job although that doesn't
mean we're out of the woods yet we still
have a lot of work to do I'd like to
show a couple slides the information
that I'm going to show is gathered by
the Health Collaborative and its data
partner their subcontractor Cincinnati
Children's Hospital the first slide
shows the overall percentage of tests
performed as well as the positivity rate
on those tests if you'll flip on the
next slide we'll highlight the bottom
left corner of the slide which shows how
many tests have been performed in the
month of April
on average we were performing about 500
tests per day in the month of April we
know that back then we saw a lot more
people positive because we were only
testing those with moderate to severe
symptoms so the positivity rate in April
was about 11 and a half percent we jump
forward now to the next slide there you
can see the the line right around 11 and
a half percent one more jump on the
slides we now look at what's happening
in the in the current month or I guess
throughout May and we see a lot more
testing happened we know that this is
going to continue to be an upward trend
we just heard Commissioner Driehaus announced a 19 million dollar plan
to increase testing in Hamilton County
so we'll see these numbers continue to
increase when you're able to test more
people you tend to test people that
aren't always sick so we see the
positivity rate or the number of people
that test positive drop to about 6% so
we'll continue to monitor some of these
testing numbers as we move into the
future on the on the next slide we've
heard if you've been watching Dr. Acton
and Governor DeWine they've talked about
Ohio's reproductive number and I'd like
to share some information related to
Hamilton County's reproductive number so
just a brief explanation the
reproductive number is intended to be an
indicator of the contagiousness or
transmitted ability of infectious
disease it's a common term in Public
Health and it's frequently used by
epidemiologists and is being described
as one of the fundamental and most often
used metrics for studying how infectious
disease spreads in a community an
outbreak is expected to continue if the
reproductive number is greater than one
you can see back back in the beginning
of April the reproductive number was at
the high peak there nearly two
two percent so at that point in time the
disease was spreading very readily as we
jump forward and when the reproductive
number goes below one an outbreak will
start to die down so really good news to
report currently in Hamilton County the
reproductive number is 0.74 so it is
slowly just slowly dying down the other
caution that I want to give though is
that this is delayed data we only know
about these values through some
calculations and through tests so we'll
be watching this very closely as we open
Ohio back up and we look to see how we
are doing with regards to slowing the
spread of the disease down
I'll point on the next slide there was a
small spike last week on May 27th which
was Wednesday the reproductive value
jumped to 1.22 we will continue to see
small speed small peaks as we move
forward and we'll be watching for this
in the coming weeks all right I want to
wrap up now with a couple of additional
comments and updates since we last met a
few items that the Governor and Director
of Health have opened back up first and
foremost we've got skating rinks ice
skating indoor miniature golf and yoga
facilities can now begin operations
again in addition all hospital and
physicians are able to continue with
surgeries as well as all kinds of
procedures there's no limitations the
Governor just asks that the appropriate
protective equipment is available
we also heard a great announcement
yesterday for our kids schools will
begin to open back up in the fall start
dates are going to be solely the
responsibility of the school board so
we'll be watching for some of those as
we move forward
Ohio will be providing in the coming
weeks some very broad guidelines to
assist our schools with what's required
when they reopen and Hamilton County
Public Health we've been in
communication with the superintendents
on a weekly basis we will continue to
work with them to make sure that they
have plans that are safe and appropriate
to keep our kids safe and our family
safe we also just heard yesterday the
governor will be making an announcement
with regards to zoos and museums on
Thursday so we look forward to seeing
some of those activities begin up again
I will end there and turn this back over
to Commissioner Driehaus
thank you Greg next we're gonna hear
from Commissioner Victoria Parks who
is going to talk about the work that
she's been doing thanks
good morning I can't breathe
black Americans face two pandemics
coronavirus and racism both are
extremely deadly
in order to help heal our society we
must identify and treat the pandemic of
racism we must address structural racism
with the same effort and passion that we
use toward other policy priorities
racism in America has deep historical
systemic roots our system is not broken
it thrives because it was built this way
what is new is this movement this very
moment I'm so excited about the protest
that looks like America
you know African-Americans have
struggled since we were brought here 400
years ago we cannot make this change by
ourselves we need you we need your help
we need you to raise your children in a
manner where they don't feel superior
I'm sick and tired of having to tell my
children and my grandchildren that they
are as good as anybody else I need you
to tell your children that they're not
better than mine it is time to dismantle
a system that leads to poverty an equal
education lopsided opportunity bad
health poor living conditions violence
and disparities that hurt people of
color and encourages depraved hearts to
act with impunity I stand with my local
and national community in our continuous
fight for justice but I know that
protests must be replaced with policy
change to that end I am in the planning
stages of declaring racism a health
crisis with the support of this board in
the Health Commissioner
we'll follow the lead of the Franklin
County Commissioners who convened
stakeholders
almost two years ago to consider the
urgent need to mitigate local poverty
and propose solutions real solutions
the steering committee's charge was to
identify ways for the county to more
effectively identify and support
pathways to prosperity that's what we
need this is the result of their work
this is a 60 page document that their
community came together and put together
it's funded it's thoughtful and it makes
sense Commissioner Kevin Boyce President
of Franklin County Board of County
Commissioners has offered to assist
Hamilton County in any way that he can
and we welcome his support and
experience I offer heartfelt condolences
to the family of Mr. George Floyd but
also the families of Breonna Taylor Mr.
Ahmaud Arbery I continue to lift the
families of Tamir Rice John Crawford and
Mr. Sam Dubose so many more in
prayer the death of George Floyd and
everybody named above would not have
occurred had their murderers regarded
them as human beings
Derek Chauvin Ray Tensing Greg and
Travis McMichael Shaun Williams Tim
Loman all lacked humanity
they felt that they were better than
their victims and were confident that
there would be no price to pay in 1955
Mamie Till said the murder of my
son has shown me that what happens to
any of us anywhere in the world had
better be the business of all of us
while you see my community mourning
George Floyd please know that we still
cry for Emmitt Till
thank you
all right so Bridget we're ready to go
to questions thank you our first
question is from Jay Hanselman and he
has questions for Greg Keserman you
know these are just a couple of quick
clarifying questions Greg if I might you
talked about that reproductive number
and you said that it was delayed how
much how long is the delay how close to
real time is it it seems like it's about
a week to two weeks in delay so anything
that we would be saying as far as
marches and protests this week if there
was any we're not gonna know that for a
couple weeks
correct but we also know last weekend
there was a lot of activity with regards
to Memorial Day weekend so we'll start
to see some of that potentially in the
in the coming week and then that number
that you're reporting is that countywide
or is that just within your district
no that is a countywide number and on
that chart there were also the region so
14 communities counties around Hamilton
County also is reflected in the other
chart
okay that's all I've got thank you
thanks Jay Chris Wetterich has questions
for both Commissioners okay okay great
Denise sorry if you've talked about
this before excuse me but I was
wondering if you could talk about hang
on a second
I swear I don't have Covid by the way
could you talk about the decision to
allocate more money to small businesses
and maybe give a brief update on the
status of that program
yes so that the window for the
applications has closed we Bridget how
many Bridget honestly Bridget Doherty
knows about these numbers better than I
do so the number of applicants were in
the upper three hundred three
hundred four hundred something like that
remember that our program was set up to
help small businesses that had not
gotten relief from the federal
government through the PPP program and
so we were clearly targeting those that
you know are very small and missed an
opportunity so the good news is that I
think we did a really good job of
hitting our target and beyond that the
numbers that we saw related to minority
businesses is very high and women-owned
businesses very high and so we hit the
target the question is can we and should
we take if there are additional
resources left given those numbers do we
need to change the criteria a little bit
to continue to help just you know adjust
a little bit to embrace and really allow
for more businesses to get some of this
relief and so that's something we're
looking at but we wanted to get through
this first round first so that was the
whole point of doing a first round and
then potentially a second round so have
applicants been informed whether they
they will receive the loans or is that
still pending that they are now in the
verification process or if they are
ineligible so either they're eligible to
move forward or ineligible meeting our
criteria and right now small businesses
are uploading verification documents for
reviewers remember the application
didn't ask for that kind of detail but
we do need that kind of detail to make
sure that they qualify for these dollars
okay great and then another question
about the the CARES Act funding the
local government money to be distributed
beyond the county is do you anticipate
that being distributed proportionally
I guess because of the city's request
for half the money and and I I'm
wondering whether that's even realistic
for them well this is a question also at
the state level you know so I talked to
Bill Seitz last night State
Representative and there is some
controversy about how the State dollars
are being dispersed whether they are
going to use the LGF formula or are they
going to use a per capita formula and so
some of what we are doing is to fill in
the gaps for communities that aren't
getting that the dollars that they need
from the state so kind of I'm not
entirely sure yet I mean and I'm ok with
that I think we're okay with that
because we need to see what the state
does because we don't know given these
allocations and the formulas that
they're using whether or not there will
continue to be gaps now the city of
Cincinnati is going to have a gap we
know that but we do not know what that
gap looks like in a Township or a
village or a smaller municipality and so
we need to better understand that before
our dollars get allocated no matter what
the formula is okay you cut out there a
little bit I think at the end you said
the city is gonna have a gap you know
that but you're not sure what the
townships are going to have right okay
that's that's all I have for you Denise we
have a couple for Victoria
hi Victory could you tell me you had
mentioned the Franklin County
Commissioners' plan is there a couple of
things on there that you think right off
the bat that Hamilton County could be
doing and what are those yes I
definitely do I admire the way that they
brought their stakeholders together
there they are conducting training
within their County in order to in order
to I don't want to say sensitize and I
don't want to say diversity training I
think that we have to be at another
place they are unfortunately having to
teach people how to behave with humanity
so so we we have to be able to translate
that to our County you know we're not
just like Franklin County and the other
thing is just just the way that they
have attacked the the disparities in
their County and the the people that
they have brought together and so what
you know as as we go through this and
I'm so grateful to President of their
board Kevin Boyce for volunteering to
help us what we are thinking about is to
provide training to our Sheriff's to our
employees this has to affect our
contracting you and oh and we have done
things it but it's been framed
differently if you think about our
policy agenda have Hamilton
County's agenda is to act equitably and
fairly we have created the economic
inclusion office Todd Portune's brainchild
of infant mortality you know all of
these are within the confines of the
effects of poverty and disparities in
racial
prejudices
and then the other question I had is
what role do you think this the region's
business community ought to have in this
effort what what do they need to be
doing in relation to this
they can do a lot
I wanted this is where I want to keep it
I want to keep it where where we are
just what we treat one another as equals
and with the business community we need
their help because they have the power
to employ to train to provide money in
order to make this happen because you
know we can talk and we can
invent programs and that kind of thing
it has to be policy and these policies
have to create programs that are funded
and so you know with our powerful
business community you know with the CCC
in the CBRC because they helped us in
so many different ways it's a good idea
um thank you for bringing it up we'll
be calling on them all right thank you
our next question comes from Scott
Wartman with the inquire for both
Commissioners
more four okay hear me now good morning
this one's more for Victoria you
mentioned that you're in the planning
stages of declaring racism a public
health crisis so what what more needs to
be done how far off are you in that
process um you know Scott I could I
could sit down and write a resolution
but I want meat on the bones I want to
be able to declare not just the problem
not that it's just a crisis I also want
to know the steps that Hamilton County
will take to address it
any idea how far off you are or how long
that process might take
um I I do not but once we start
convening I'm not going to meet for a
long time because we you know we do know
the problems I'll tell you what's got I
will say in one month we will have
something to say
once you do make that declaration
legally does that like open up like
either maybe like grant opportunities or
would any like concrete example of what
that that does or is it more symbolic or
how I don't know if you could explain
like legally what that does making that
declaration but what what was that you
said you said brand no uh what once
you make that declaration legally what
does that does that like open up like
like funding opportunities or what does
that legally do by making that
declaration as a public health emergency
what we would do once we make the
declaration we will enact policy which
will open the way for funding you know
just like anything else you know just
like the the infant mortality just like
the heroin coalition
just like the oral health coalition you
know we will take steps to address this
and in in establish programs you know
because Scott we can't do anything
without funding
I had one question for Denise on another topic thanks Victoria
morning morning I know it's still ongoing
but I didn't know if you had any
indication from the Sheriff's Department
on cost or overtime over the last five
days any any idea to the county or well
and we we have been thinking through
that I mean there are obvious cost to
the nature of the work that's going on
right now it's a 24/7 operation it
always is but we've you know got more
personnel involved right now and so I
don't know what the costs are you know as
you think about Covid-19 and some of the
impacts to County revenues and then you
bring in the state dollars and what can
we use those for and some of it is
safety related help just super helpful
and it changed from the original and
then you think about the additional it's
related to the protests yeah we have to
fold all these things together but
they're clearly going to be an increased
cost and so we're going to have to deal
with that thank you thank you oh very
good
all right well thank you I want to thank
Commissioner Parks so much for being
here and we are looking forward
collectively to rolling something out
and within the next month so very good
and thanks also to Health Commissioner
Greg casterman who is always providing
data and you know the relativity to
Hamilton County related to what's
happening at the state level so it's
it's really very helpful remember as you
go out we are still in the middle of
this health crisis and so we're we're
all wearing but you can't see this and I
think it's can be a little confusing we
all have our masks with us we are 6 feet
apart so we don't have them on when we
come to the mic but we've got them on as
we leave the room and as we enter the
room so please everybody take that
seriously wear the masks for yourself
and others and we again what are doing
these once a week so we'll be back next
Wednesday thank you
