COLUMBUS, Ohio — Gov. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said he will not change the metric Ohio is using to determine when to lift the state's health orders related to the pandemic, despite having less than three months before losing complete autonomy over those orders due to a veto override last week from the state legislature.

Local officials caught in the middle of the fight spoke with Spectrum News Friday.

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said she has been impressed with Public Health of Dayton and Montgomery County's effort during the pandemic. Dayton was the first city in Ohio to mandate masks.

"Being able to have that flexibility for locals to really decide what they need to do to control things when it comes to local health issues, I think makes a lot of sense and that's a conservative idea," said Whaley, D-Dayton.

But with the general assembly's override of DeWine's veto of Senate Bill 22, local health departments can no longer make their own widespread quarantine orders, or shut down schools or businesses if they feel there is a threat. Only a person or people who have a disease or been in close contact to someone who has it can be forced to isolate.

"You have politicians not following data and science and they happen to be state legislators in Ohio,” Whaley said. “And it was doubly disappointing that the governor is the leader of his party and he's completely lost control of his party.”

The bill also says state lawmakers must sign off on any health emergency that lasts longer than 30 days and a simple majority can strike down any order immediately. If that were to happen, the governor would have to wait 60 days before re-issuing a similar order. 

Delaware City Councilwoman Lisa Keller, a registered Republican, testified in support of the bill last month.​

"Not only does this bill continue to be necessary, but it may very well be our only path to getting back to the Ohio we remember," Keller said March 9.

Keller said her constituents have asked her questions and she has tried getting answers from the governor several times, but with no success.

"That has been very frustrating, because, locally, I'm accountable to the people who have elected me and put me in the office that I am,” Keller said. “And when I have to return with, 'I really have no information for you.' That's a really powerless position to be in.”

Keller also wants to know why DeWine will not end the state's COVID-19 restrictions until there are less than 50 cases per 100,000 people when he based his decision to lift the previous curfew on COVID-19 hospitalizations.

"If we were looking at those hospitalizations, whatever metric he would've set up we would've already achieved," Keller said.

On Thursday, DeWine doubled down on the metric even as cases are going back up.

"Science would not indicate any reason to change that. What I think will change it is the number of people who get vaccinated," said DeWine.

That will not be his decision alone once Senate Bill 22 goes into effect June 22 unless the governor challenges it in court.

Whaley said the bill has less to do with the pandemic than it does with any future emergency.

"Our chief medical officer gave an example,” she said. “This law that they passed basically says you have to wait to prove if the person has the disease, and we know just from COVID that's taken two or three days. So you cannot have folks self-contain or require them to stay at home if they've gotten a virus that is so communicable until it's proven.”