For Immediate Release: Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Contact: Tom Zawistowski, 330-592-1848, TomZ@WethePeopleConvention.org
Akron, OH: Today, Tom Zawistowski, President of the TEA Party affiliated We the People Convention, put out a list of questions that Ohio Governor "Chicken Little" and his incompetent and unqualified Health Director "Dr. Acting" must answer in today's Press Conference to justify the egregeous and damaging actions they have taken against Ohio citizens.
Based on these basic and incomplete statistics, Ohio Governor "Chicken Little" Mike DeWine and his Health Director "Dr. Acting" Acton have illegally ordered that all "Non-Essential" businesses in Ohio close and that Ohio Citizens "stay at home" for at least another two weeks:
Zawistowski is DEMANDING that the General Assembly and the media force Governor DeWine and Dr. Acton to answer these BASIC and critical questions:
1) How many total individuals have been tested for Coronavirus in Ohio as of Today?
(Dr. Acton said today that only 14,764 have been tested in Ohio as of 3/25/20)
2) How many of those tests have been NEGATIVE? (14,060)
3) Why are you not reporting this information to the CDC?
4) Your reports say that 564 people in Ohio have tested positive, so what percentage of the total tests does that number represent? (Dr. Acton today that only 5% have tested positive)
5) Why have you not done a series of random tests in Ohio to back up your “Guestimate” that there are 100,000 cases in Ohio?
6) Why doesn't the Ohio Department of Health track adult deaths from the “regular” flu?
7) How can you claim that the Coronavirus is so much worse than the regular flu when you have no data on either disease?
8) You have no data for your models, so on what basis are you justified in taking these illegal and draconian measures against the citizens of Ohio?
9) Your data says that 8 people have died in Ohio from Coronavirus over six weeks, over that same time at least 14,000 Ohioans have died from other causes. How do the deaths of such a tiny fraction of Ohioans justify shutting down Ohio's economy?
10) How many medical workers are working in Ohio?
11) How many of them have been tested for Coronavirus?
(Dr. Acton said today (3/25/20) that 16% of Ohio Health Care Workers have been tested)
12) How many have tested positive and what is that as a percentage of all health workers?
13) You report that we have 145 people hospitalized in Ohio for Coronavirus. How many available beds are there since you have now canceled all “non-essential” medical procedures?
14) Just in 2017-18 there were 17,397 hospitalizations for the regular flu and the Ohio healthcare system was not "overwhelmed." By what logic can you justify your claims that the Covid-19 is worse?
15) Governor DeWine, since you have ordered all “non-essential” businesses in Ohio to close, how many businesses is that in Ohio exactly?
(There are approximately 227,339 small businesses in Ohio, and it is pojected that 50% or 113,670 of these businesses will close permanently under your orders. How can you justify your destructive actions based on the lack of cases and deaths in Ohio or the prospect of those cases and deaths exceeding that of the regular flu?)
16) How many employees work at those businesses, Governor?
(As of December 2019, 5,598,000 people were working in Ohio, and it is estimated that at least 25% of those workers are now unemployed. Is it true that the deaths of 8 people and the hospitalization of 145 people justifies your taking away the income of 1,389,950 Ohioans?
17) What is the economic impact to those businesses caused by your actions, Governor? What are the tax losses to local communities, counties and state governments by putting them out of business? Please share with us your numbers because we are confident that you made those calculations before making your decisions.
18) How much total income will be lost by the employees of these companies in the next two weeks from your actions? We are sure you have caluculated this number before deciding to take this money away from the Citizens of Ohio. (If the average wage for those 1,389,950 employees is $17.00 per hour and they worked even 32 hours per week, they would lose $544 per week, without unemployment which could take weeks to get, for a total of $756,132,800 per week and $1,512,265,600 over the next two weeks! So, you think that 8 deaths and 145 hospitalizations justify your taking $1.5 BILLION out of the pockets of Ohio familes?)
19) What is the average loss of income to each of those employees? Share with us your calculations on the economic damage to these individuals and families you feel is justified because 8 people have died and 145 have been hospitalized, and your ill-informed Health Director has provided unsubstantiated "projections" to you that have caused you to panic and take these unconstitutional, illegal and egregious actions?
20) How could you, Governor, based on the fact that you did not ask yourself, calculate, or provide to the General Assembly, the media, or the Citizens of Ohio, the anwers to ANY of these questions when you, illegally, announced each of your decisions that took away the jobs, the businesses, and the liberties of the Citizens of Ohio who elected YOU to "Protect and Defend" the Constitution of Ohio and their rights?
If the Media will not ask these questions of Governor "Chicken Little" and "Dr. Acting" at their Press Conference Today, then the General Assembly MUST call the Governor and Dr. Acton to testify before both houses of the Legislature IMMEDIATELY to get these answers. Furtheremore, if the Governor cannot provide these answers, then the Legislature MUST take IMMEDIATE action to repeal the orders given to date by Governor DeWine and Dr. Acton as the Ohio Constitution gives "Emergency Powers" to the General Assembly alone.