ARCHBOLD WEATHER

The Governor Exercises Some Clout


Mike DeWine, the normally mildmannered governor of Ohio, showed flashes of exasperation and determination, Sunday March 29, when, in an unscheduled press conference, he described how he got approval for a process that sterilizes used medical N95 respirators, commonly called face masks.

With the threat from the Coronavirus, hospitals and first responders have been burning through the supply of the masks, which are designed for one-time-only use. The supply is now dangerously low.

The laboratories of the Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, developed a process to sterilize and reuse the masks up to 20 times. Battelle has the ability to sterilize up to 80,000 used masks a day per machine. There are two machines in Ohio.

The federal Food & Drug Administration, which regulates such systems, approved the Battelle process­– for 10,000 masks a day.

That raised DeWine’s ire. As he described the story Sunday, he picked up the phone and called the president of the United States. Before too many hours had passed, the FDA had changed its mind, and decided Battelle can do the full amount per day.

That is how political clout works. DeWine utilized his political power to get what Ohio, and the nation, needs from an unresponsive bureaucracy. It shouldn’t have to work like this, but unfortunately, it does.

Kudos for DeWine for recognizing when clout was needed and applying it deftly.