COLUMBUS, Ohio — Washington wasn’t the only place hard at work on a stimulus package.
On Wednesday, the Ohio legislature passed one of their own.
In it, tax day is pushed back to July 30, and the governor now has permission to dip into the rainy day fund —which has 2.7 billion dollars.
“Expanding unemployment assistance, helping individuals, aid to hospitals, food aid, small business loans, transportation assistance, are just some of the many things that we know we need, and we are so very grateful to the members of the Ohio delegation for working on these things,” said Governor Mike DeWine.
Meanwhile, there were some staggering statistics out of Wednesday’s press briefing. Health Director Dr. Amy Acton says of the 704 cases in our state, 116 of them are health care workers. As cases are expected to jump exponentially in the coming weeks, so are the number of infected front line workers.
As part of the legislature’s relief package passed Wednesday, they’re lifting restrictions on temporary nurse licenses. It grants prospective nurses temporary licenses that are valid for 90 days. The idea is to bolster the health care workforce, which is being thinned out daily by exposure to the virus.
Dr. Acton says no one is immune and those who are in constant contact with the sick are especially vulnerable.
“I do want everyone to know that young people do get sick, middle-age folks, people a little over middle-age like myself get sick. We do tend to recover more, which is great news, but in our cases, even in the 40- to 50-year-old age range, 1 in 250 is the fatality rate,” she said.