CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Mike DeWine

Interview

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Joining me now is another governor dealing with a rise in his state, that is Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio.

It's really nice to have you. Thanks so much for the time this morning.

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Thank you. Good to be with you. Thank you very much.

HARLOW: A high rise in cases in your state. You saw a big rise just yesterday and I think your question this morning is that an anomaly or is this a pattern that we're going to continue to see? You're setting up an additional PPE stockpile. You're moving the Ohio National Guard to assist with testing. So you're doing a lot.

I wonder if you agree with the president who said this week that coronavirus is, quote, "dying out"?

DEWINE: Well, let me tell you a little bit about what's going on in Ohio. We've had a plateau in hospitalizations, actually our cases have been going down. You're absolutely right, we saw a spike yesterday. Went up to 700 cases. We're going to have to watch that over the next few days. What we did -- what we do know and what our experts who are watching these numbers every day told us is we have a spike that we're worried about in five counties in southwest Ohio.

So it's the Dayton area and the Cincinnati area. We're working directly with the two mayors there and we're bringing in the guard to assist as far as actually swabbing and getting more testing. We've narrowed it down frankly to five or six zip codes and so we're going to focus on those.

HARLOW: Right. I'm so glad we have your voice this morning because you've been a leader on this. I mean, you closed your schools before almost everyone else, you've been outspoken about this. Again, the president's words are so important right now and him saying that it is, quote, "dying out," is that what you're seeing? Do you believe that is the case?

DEWINE: Well, as I said, we're not seeing it in southwest Ohio.

HARLOW: OK.

DEWINE: We're not seeing that. I can only report what we're seeing in Ohio.

HARLOW: Yes.

DEWINE: And look, this virus -- we're going to have to learn to live with this. I think what we don't know is, you know, what help we get because of the summer. What we do know is we have a lot more moving around, as you can expect, in the summer. That what's we all do. So you know the exposure is certainly up. And, you know the opportunity for people to become infected.

But Ohioans have done well. They've kept their distance. We've gotten to where we are with that and we're now trying to do two things at once. Trying to open the economy and we've got it pretty much open.

HARLOW: I know.

DEWINE: But also stay safe.

HARLOW: So one way to really -- I'm sorry to step on you, Governor.

DEWINE: No, go ahead.

HARLOW: One way to really --

DEWINE: Sure.

HARLOW: To really stay safe and reopen is mask wearing. We know that, the science tells us that. California yesterday mandating mask wearing, pretty much everywhere, indoors and outdoors with a few exceptions. Are you considering the same for Ohio?

DEWINE: Well, we have health orders every employee with very few exceptions wears a mask. If you go into the grocery store, everyone is wearing a mask. I was in a grocery store in South Charleston, Ohio, everybody had a mask on.

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But what we are really urging people to do, if you go out in public, you go to a grocery store, wear a mask for the guy who's behind the counter or the woman who's behind the counter, because you wear a mask for other people. So it's a work in progress. We're going to continue to talk about the importance of the mask. We have not ordered them as far as people out in public. But it certainly is very, very, very important.

HARLOW: It sounds like you're not ruling it out if things get worse. We'll continue to watch that. What about potentially reversing course? I know you're still in phase one, eventually going to phase two. The governor of Florida has been so clear, Governor DeSantis, that no a matter how much the cases spike in Florida they're not going to reverse course, they're not going to back track, they're not going to shut down again. Are you also ruling out another shutdown for Ohio?

DEWINE: Well, we don't rule anything out, but I got that question yesterday at our press conference and what I said is, look, we have some tools we need to use first. And we're using them in southwest Ohio. We're moving in with a lot more testing. And a lot more tracing. And so that's a tool that we have. The other tool we have is the ability for me and the mayors and the health directors to communicate to people in the areas where we're starting to see a rise.

And those counties where I talked about, we're starting to see a rise. So we have to communicate that to people so they can make the right decision and that is to be careful.

HARLOW: Governor, what about schools? Again, you announced after just five cases of COVID in early March in your state, you said on March 12th you were going to shut the schools. You led the way. I know you say it's sort of school-by-school. How confident are you statewide schools are going to open, elementary, middle, high school, in the fall?

DEWINE: We told the schools to plan to reopen. We have also told them to come up with contingency plans if they have to go back to distance learning then, you know, let's say we hit in January or some time a huge resurgence or the so-called second wave and schools, you know, decide, hey, we can't do it, parents don't want to send their kids. They've got to be able to turn on a dime very, very quickly and get that distance learning.

The challenge with distance learning is that we have some areas in our cities, for example, where kids don't have the internet service they need. We have other areas in Appalachia, in Ohio, where whole areas don't have that kind of good service. So there's an un-equalness to the education when we have to go to that distance learning and that's why we're reluctant to do that.

But ultimately, schools just like school looks at -- we have schools every year in Ohio, we close for some time because of flu. The same thing. We're going to watch what's goes on and monitor what goes on in that school district, and that those zip codes and inform them and we don't just have to inform them, they'll know what's going on as well. And these schools then will be making these decisions.

But the goal is to go back to school and be in class, but the educators' already working on how do I keep the distance.

HARLOW: Yes.

DEWINE: You know, all the things that we have to do. And it's not easy. But they're working on.

HARLOW: It's a huge --

DEWINE: They're doing a good job.

HARLOW: It's a huge challenge and we're grateful that they are and especially hope a lot of focus is on, as you said, getting that broadband access to the kids that need it the most in the rural parts of your state that just don't have equal learning if they don't have access.

Governor DeWine, good luck. We appreciate your time today.

DEWINE: Thank you. Good to be with you. Thanks.

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