Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Dental, veterinarian and medical offices will reopen today, the first businesses considered non-essential to open under Ohio’s new health orders.
The Dayton Daily News asked experts in health care about their reaction to the DeWine administration’s plan for Ohio’s initial reopening. They reacted with a mix of approval, cautiousness and concerns.
Dr. Dawn Wooley, virologist and Wright State University professor, said the pace of reopening shared by the DeWine administration is fairly conservative, with non-essential manufacturing, distribution, construction and general office businesses to reopen Monday and retail opening in mid May with conditions like increased sanitation and social distancing. More congregated services with vulnerable populations like senior centers not reopening yet.
“It’s reasonable because only very few services can open up in the early part of May, at mid-May when you start to see consumer retail services there’s more chances for transmission and that’s two weeks down the road from now,” Wooley said.
Wooley said there are people who don’t qualify for life-saving procedures who still need care that has been put off and there are other medical services like cancer screenings that are important to continue.
“I think it’s very reasonable where we are at with these curves to say we start opening back up some of those medical procedures,” Wooley said.
She cautioned that it’s important to remember the virus is going to be with the community even when cases decline to a lower level.
“Therefore people still need to be cautious. We do not want a resurgence, but if we’re not careful we’re going to negate everything we’ve done, all of this pain and suffering with the shutdowns will be for nothing,” Wooley said.
