CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Gov. Mike DeWine

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Joining us now, Republican Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio.

Governor, I know you got a lot going on. We're grateful to you for spending a few moments with us.

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: You're now closing all schools across your state, banning gatherings of 100 people or more.

[18:10:03]

What led you, Governor, to take these drastic measures? DEWINE: You know, Wolf, we're very lucky in Ohio. We have a great

director of health, Dr. Amy Acton.

We have been consulting with experts all through this every single day. And it was time. The experts told us it was time to do this. This was not something we wanted to do, particularly with the schoolchildren.

But you have to -- the experts tell you, you have to try to slow this thing down. And our biggest concern in Ohio and this country is overtaxing our whole medical system, so we end up like, apparently, Italy is, where they're making life-and-death decisions.

We don't want to get to that point. We got to push this back. We got to spread it out. We know what's coming. We know it's significantly here in Ohio.

But, this way, we can spread this thing out, and so that we will be in a position where we can save lives. And we can also have a health system that will be able to treat, not only the people who have this, but will also be able to treat people have heart attacks and other day-to-day problems.

So, it was time to do it.

BLITZER: Yes. And you're not the only one. Maryland, Kentucky, they're also closing all public schools, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, charter schools.

Your state has reported -- correct me if I'm wrong, Governor -- only about five confirmed cases of coronavirus. But what's so alarming, Ohio's Department of Public Health estimates -- and correct me once again if I'm wrong -- 100,000 people in Ohio may be carrying this virus right now.

Do you have the resources to respond to those kinds of numbers?

DEWINE: Well, sure.

Well, first of all, Wolf, people may ask where we came up with this. This is what the experts tell us. They tell us that, when you have two community people, in other words, who didn't get it on a cruise ship or didn't get on a trip, and we don't know where that got it, when you hit two, you basically have 1 percent of your population that is impacted, that is infected.

So, that's what really led us to do this, a large number of people. And this thing multiplies. The experts we have consulted says that it will multiply every six days. So, in other words, if you have 100,000 people one day, six days later, you have got 200,000.

And then it just keeps doubling.

So, it's here in Ohio. It's here in every state, I'm sure. But the experts just told us, look, if you wait until you think it's time to do it, you're too late. BLITZER: Yes.

DEWINE: You have got to get -- it's not like you're getting in front of it and keeping it out of the state. That's not what we're doing. But there's a time where you can really break it, slow it down significantly, but you got to really take some really dramatic and drastic action.

And, look, this was dramatic and drastic action, shutting all the schools down in the state of Ohio, going to -- shutting down the theaters, shutting down movie theaters, not something we wanted to do.

But as I told the people of the state of Ohio today, look, we're going to get through this.

BLITZER: Yes.

DEWINE: The sun's going to come out again. It's going to get darker first, but we got to push through it. It's like running a gauntlet.

We got to get people through this gauntlet. And when you get through it, we're going to be OK. We are going to move on. Ohioans are resilient people.

BLITZER: They are, indeed.

Do you have enough tests right now for all the people who will need tests in Ohio? Are people able, for example, to simply walk in and get tested?

DEWINE: No, people can't walk in and get tested. That's not the situation. I don't think that's the situation in any state.

We have over 1,000 now. We got another shipment in. But...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Another 1,000 what?

DEWINE: Tests. Tests.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: That's all for the entire state? You got a lot of people in Ohio.

DEWINE: Here's -- Wolf, here's how it's been explained to me by Dr. Acton.

What she says is, look, we're going to reach a point where we're not going to test people. Would it be nice to be able to know exactly where we are? Yes, but we can pretty much extrapolate from what the experts tell us where we are.

And that's where the figure of 100,000 that we could have in the state of Ohio. And so we're going to get to a point, not too distant future, when there's going to be so many people that are infected in this country that you're going to stop doing testing anyway.

So I'm not minimizing that. But I'm just saying, look, we have to focus every day. As governor of the state, I have to focus every day on doing what I can to protect the people of the state. The actions that we took today, we believe, will clearly save lives and we will slow this thing down.

BLITZER: Yes, let's hope -- let's -- everybody's hoping for that.

One quick political question. How's the crisis going to impact Ohio's Democratic presidential primary, which is next Tuesday?

[18:15:01]

DEWINE: I have no idea. I just have been so focused on this.

And I don't know. The one thing that we saw, of course -- I was asked a few days ago about rallies of the two candidates. And I said, look, I can't tell them not to have rallies.

But I think people should not go to those rallies. And it would probably be a good idea if we don't have any kind of meetings that big. It's not that it was a political rally. We just don't want to have that big of gatherings.

And we issued the warning today.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: No, they have canceled all those.

The Sanders campaign and the Biden -- they have canceled the rallies.

DEWINE: Yes. And that was smart. That was the right thing the do.

BLITZER: But what about voting? Are people simply going to be able to go to the voting booths and cast a ballot?

DEWINE: Yes, we have made -- we have made changes.

For example, we had a number of polling places that were actually in nursing homes. And we have really restricted -- we have pulled those out. Secretary of State LaRose pulled those out, put them somewhere else.

So, we have taken a lot of actions. We also have early voting in Ohio, so a lot of people have already voted. Voting is going on tomorrow again. It goes on this weekend. People can vote on Monday.

So there's ample opportunity to kind of spread this out as far as the number of people who are in line it at one time. So we do not anticipate any major problems on Election Day on Tuesday.

BLITZER: Well, good luck. We really appreciate your joining us, Governor DeWine. I know these are critical days for you, for everyone in your state, indeed, critical days for people all over the country, indeed, all over the world.

More than 100 countries right now are suffering from the coronavirus.

Governor DeWine, thank you so much.

DEWINE: Thank you, Wolf.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source