Today I want to talk about two very essential components that help build the foundation for our ability to carefully begin to re-open Ohio:

Testing Capacity
Contact Tracing

Testing: #Ohio, like other parts of the country, has experienced two problems with our ability to test:

A lack of the necessary testing reagent
A shortage of testing swabs

Reagent: Governor Celeste and Governor Taft working with our team this weak had a major breakthrough working with Thermo Fisher that will substantially expand our testing capacity in #Ohio.

After their work, I talked directly with Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper, and we now have an agreement with them. This is an exciting, new partnership, and we look forward to working with the Thermo Fisher team and its 1,500 employees working in Ohio.

Swabs: As a result of collaborative efforts through the @OhioMFG to Fight #COVID19, @RoeDentalLab in Cleveland will manufacture up to 1 million swabs to support our testing efforts.

. @RoeDentalLab usually produces dental restorations, such as crowns, dentures, and dental surgical guides. The @OhioMFG helped @RoeDentalLab secure the specifications to manufacture swabs from @Formlabs, a 3D printing company in Toledo.

. @Formlabs was the original production partner of OSU and Battelle for swabs. However, given our significant demand, more swabs are needed. That’s where @RoeDentalLab comes in.

They are the newest partner with the @OhioMFG to help us meet our need. @RoeDentalLAb has invested in more will bring nearly 100 employees back to work to produce swabs around the clock, while practicing safe social distancing.

Beginning this coming Wednesday, our capability will be at least 7,200 tests per day, and that number will go to15,000 by May 6th; 18,800 by May 13th; and 22,000 by May 27th.

This will dramatically increase our ability to test, particularly in our priority areas. For example:

We will have a greater ability test in nursing homes and see where there are problems;

We can better identify other hot spots and go in more aggressively

We can focus on congregate living settings, such as homeless shelters, treatment centers, developmental disability homes;

We will be better able to make sure food/grocery workers and employees in essential manufacturing facilities are healthy & not spreading the disease

And finally, it is going to enable us to stand up a very robust contact exposure tracing ability.

I want to again thank Ohioans for your efforts. You have gotten us to where we are today. We have done this the Ohio way and we are going to continue to do this the Ohio way.

Ohioans are fighters. And we now have the ability to really go on the offense against this enemy. That means we are going to track it down. We are going to isolate it. And then, we are going to kill it.

This is an aggressive strategy, because Ohioans are not going to let this thing dominate our lives.

Contact exposure tracing is one of the strongest weapons we help keep our families, our friends, and ourselves healthy – all done in a voluntary way, where we can take some control back over this disease.

This is an aggressive strategy because Ohioans are not going to let this thing dominate our lives.

Contact exposure tracing is one of the strongest weapons we help keep our families, our friends, and ourselves healthy – all done in a voluntary way, where we can take some control back over this disease.

By stopping that spread, we are protecting others. Contact tracing is one more tool. It works along with our other efforts to test, socially distance, and wear masks.

As part of our offense strategy, we started working with @PIH , a group based in Massachusetts, started by a friend of ours named Dr. Paul Farmer.

. @FranDeWine and I have known Dr. Farmer for many years from his work in Haiti to help dramatically cut the AIDS rate in Haiti and Africa.

. @PIH is a world-renowned organization that works to protect communities and will bring in needed resources to #Ohio to help us increase our ability to trace contact exposure to the virus.