Editor’s note: Today, March 17, 2022, is the second anniversary of Ohio’s primary election being canceled due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here local officials and members of the public look back on the outbreak thus far.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — It has been two years since “coronavirus” went from a distant concept to a dreaded illness that defined a way of life, and the local area is still coping with the pandemic.

For many Ohioans, the disruption of the 2020 primary elections signaled that the COVID-19 pandemic had hit home. After rulings and counter-rulings from the state’s judges, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld mandates to delay the election from March 17 to April 28 and to conduct voting by mail only, in the interest of slowing the spread of the infection and safeguarding older poll workers.

Michael Shaheen, a member of the Belmont County Board of Elections, remembers the uncertainty felt as the board and staff kept up with precautions.

“The unknown is the worst. Just having no idea what could turn up, the anxiety associated with that, so this was a completely new world for not just our election board, but every election board,” he said.

Shaheen recalls how preventive measures mixed with the volatility of some voters’ opposition to masks, spacing and other precautions.

“Almost daily there were new challenges,” Shaheen said. “We just really didn’t know what to expect. … We were learning on the fly.”

He commended the elections staff, many of whom are newer and younger employees, for their professionalism. He also thanks board President Frankie Carnes for her leadership.

Deputy Director Kamron Chervenak had not yet worked for the board when the pandemic struck, but she has since assisted in leading the way forward.

“Going forward, ultimately our goal is for everyone to vote safely without that being a concern, so we’re still taking safety precautions,” she said. “Here at the office, we still sanitize every night. … We do everything here to alleviate that concern, with our poll workers, with people who are voting on Election Day, who come into our office.”

Chervenak said they also take concerns of older poll workers seriously and expect an increase in early in-person voting or distance voting. Face masks and vaccines will continue to be recommended among employees, and personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer are available at polling locations.

She compared the situation to the current primary dispute.

“You see that took place in 2020. You see an uncertainty with the 2022 primary as well with this redistricting, which stems from a delay in the census from COVID and all that. But ultimately in 2020, the primary in Belmont County was successful and it was accurate, so it should give the public a sense of faith in us in being able to deliver under that uncertainty,” she noted.

Other officials remembered the impact of the pandemic’s arrival in the region.

“When it all started it was somewhat surreal. At the time, we didn’t think it would get to the level that it has,” Belmont County Commissioner Josh Meyer said, recalling strictly limiting the number of people attending meetings and requiring masks.

“I remember things quickly getting shut down. … It slowed down a lot of things. I know we had some projects in the works at 2020 that got put on hold,” Meyer said, adding he believes a positive announcement regarding a possible ethane cracker plant might have been close at that time.

Building projects were also put on hold, and the county took a financial hit.

Meyer said the health emergency also emphasised the needs and importance of the county health department and said plans are in the works for an expanded building; however, availability and cost of materials will likely stall many projects.

He said he hopes for a return to normalcy, but added that some elements of the pandemic response will likely remain.

“Across the country, we’re pretty resilient people,” he said. “Hopefully the worst is behind us.”

Belmont County Deputy Health Commissioner Robert Sproul can recall the uncertainty about protecting the public as he awaited the first inevitable cases.

“No one knew exactly how it was going to be spread exactly, how contagious it was going to be exactly, and how deadly it would be, depending on the person,” he said, noting nobody knew much about its deadliness or how long the virus would live on surfaces.

“There was a lot of unknowns, not a lot of information at that point. We just knew that there were a lot of people being sick over in Asia, and it was slowly coming our way, and we had nothing to combat it with. We didn’t have any vaccines. We didn’t have any antivirals that were approved.”

He also remembers the rising number of deaths associated with the virus during those early months.

“Once it hits, our scope expands outside the office,” he said, adding that many of the department’s normal duties were curtailed in order to trace people who had been in contact with individuals infected with COVID and obtain protective gear for agencies.

He said worries about a new variant are fewer now, since professionals are armed with knowledge and resources.

“We’re in a much, much better situation now than we were two years ago,” he said.

“Our numbers are down. For example we have 127 active right now. Last week I think we had 30 new cases total. Our numbers are dropping down. … We’re seeing more and more antivirals come onto the market,” he said, adding he hopes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eventually will declare the virus to be endemic, like the flu, and that normalcy can return.

Sproul said other factors further complicated the response, such as a lack of trust.

“The CDC was not very good with their communications and with getting information out to everyone about the disease, which caused a lot of distrust,” Sproul said. “We haven’t had a large, full-scale pandemic in over 100 years.”

In addition, Sproul noted the virus was very politicized from all corners.

“That was another thing that made it more difficult, too. That it was very politiziced,” he said.

Sproul added he fears this could lead to a more widespread distrust of all immunizations and subsequent return of diseases such as polio.

Garen Rhome, administrator at the Harrison County Health Department, commented on the expanded responsibilities of his office.

“I believe our first case in Harrison County was … mid-April of 2020. We were one of the last two counties (in Ohio) to have a confirmed case of COVID-19.”

“Our office was certainly primarily focused on the first half of 2020 on mitigation and education, on slowing the spread,” he said.

The second half of the year, and into 2022, promotion and distribution of vaccine became another priority. He commended the county’s preparedness program.

“We stand ready all the time, pre-COVID, for something close to 20 years that program has been in place. We prepare for these potential moments. We exercise. We practice. We plan for pandemic moments, a point of dispensing a vaccine or medication,” he noted.

Rhome said his office was in closer contact than ever with many entities.

“Some of the questions might be really specific about distancing or a barrier. … ‘Is this going to be adequate? Is this not going to be adequate?’ We tried to work with anybody who had these type of questions.”

He said one positive aspect of dealing with COVID has been the formation of new partnerships with various entities such as the schools, nonprofits, other county officials, health centers and the Area Agency on Aging.

“The structure of public health that we know now in Ohio was established in 1919 … with local public health department and a county or district or city level,” he said. “It’s going to be interesting to see what comes out as far as funding opportunities and changes in funding structures. There’s no way to know right now, but it’s going to be interesting to see.”

He said while COVID-19 cases have been waning since January and Feburary, it is still a pandemic and he has concerns of new variants arising in parts of the world where case rates are high.

In Monroe County, Linda Masters, administrator of the health department, said staff not only performed contact tracing early on but delivered supplies to quarantined families and COVID tests to the Ohio Department of Health lab in Reyonldsburg. They also held 13 drive-through clinics.

“Our department did a wonderful job,” Masters said. “We are now working to incorporate COVID into our typical daily practices”

At the state level, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued numerous lockdowns and mandates and received heavy criticism. Dan Tierney, press secretary for DeWine’s office, responded to a request for comment from the governor.

“Gov. DeWine believed that if we acted quickly on COVID-19, Ohio would come out of the pandemic faster and stronger than if we did not take action. That has borne to be true, as not only did these actions save lives, but Ohio’s economy has also done better than many other states, we balanced our budget without dipping into the rainy day fund, and new companies are choosing Ohio in which to do business, such as Intel,” Tierney wrote in an email. He referred to a major microchip company expecting to invest in Ohio in the future.

“While we look forward to the continued decline of this virus, the governor also pauses at this anniversary to remember all those affected by this virus, including the more than 37,000 Ohioans who died from COVID-19.”