MEMO TO DELAWARE CITY COUNCIL

RE: PROPOSED RESOLUTION No. 20-53, Sponsor Councilmember Lisa Keller

From: (Alphabetically listed and professional affiliation for background purposes only; while we
are all professors at Ohio Wesleyan University, we write in our private capacity, positions are
listed for identification purposes only)

Professor Suren S. Ambegaokar (D.O. Robbins Associate Professor of Neuroscience and

Microbiology)
Professor Kira Bailey (Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology)
Professor Christopher Fink (Associate Professor of Health and Human Kinetics)
Professor Sean Kay (Robson Professor of Politics and Government)
Professor Randolph Quaye (Professor, Black World Studies/Sociology of Health and Illness)

Dear City Council,

We write with regard to what we understand will be a resolution to be considered Monday, 14

September regarding a challenge to the Ohio public health authorities regarding how they present
data on COVID-19. We write as experts on strategy for addressing pandemic at various levels,
in our personal capacity, to express opposition to this motion and to provide clarity on this issue.
The premise of the resolution you are being asked to consider challenges Ohio public health data,
seeking to have regular reporting on countywide testing levels to demonstrate more local
understanding of positivity rates. The major use of knowing a positivity rate is to determine if
enough testing is being conducted or not, but it does not convey information about the risk of
exposure. While both are important aspects for a government to monitor and respond to
appropriately, a low positivity rate is often mistaken for a low risk of exposure. This is not the
case, as the risk of exposure is best determined by the per capita rate of infection, which the Ohio
department of health is already providing to each county regularly. This resolution does not state
how it intends to use the positivity rate for public health decisions, and without such a statement
and the ease with which the positivity rate and risk of exposure can be confused, the seeming end
goal of this resolution is to be able to falsely use a low positivity rate to declare our area COVID
free and thus we can move away from restrictions via decisions to be taken at the local level.
Ohio positivity rates relative to tests are public information and are readily available now,
providing essential detail on the risk of community spread (which does not stop at county lines).
Consider it this way - if Delaware County were to get data showing it has a low positivity rate
(rather than a trend of rates per capita), that would not matter - because the county next to us, or
any county in Ohio or another state from which people travel to Delaware County, can have
higher rates, when they come here, they risk community spread. So, if we have currently low
rates, and then change public policy based on that, while having people commuting to Columbus,
Ohio State, out of state, etc., then the risk of spread increases dramatically here due to the
misunderstanding of data. If one were to make public policy based on the assumptions driving
this resolution, it would only work if all people entering Delaware County were tested, and the
town introduce heavy fines and penalties for not adhering to mask mandates. We oppose those
ideas because they are not necessary and would undermine personal freedom, and thus we
oppose this resolution.
This approach is subsequently dangerous because all the successful steps we have taken that are
allowing our businesses to be as open as possible and our schools to be open, will be undermined
and put at risk by increased community spread due to this narrow interpretation of data. In
effect, you would be voting for a false sense of security that assumes that a status quo in any
county will not be impacted by what happens outside the county. Thus, the data we need to
make responsible local decisions is already publicly available via the State of Ohio.
We are not opposed at all to having a good sense of local spread, which is also already publicly
available via the Delaware County Health District site and other places. It is helpful to know the
rate of increase in cases (which as you might note, is going up rather steadily of late) in our
county so people here can make informed choices and decisions about their behavior. But to
challenge the Ohio public health experts, and Governor Mike DeWine, in this form, is to in
effect undermine public trust in our institutions at the most critical time - heading into the very
serious combination of regular flu season combined with COVID-19, while laying the
groundwork for local decision-making that fails to account for how pandemic spreads and risk
increases. Despite good intentions, the end result would likely be more closures, more
businesses under serious threat, and schools shutting down.
Instead of voting on measures that would confuse the public, we respectfully recommend instead
focusing the efforts of City Council on educating the public about these very risks, explaining
what data matters and why, instead of considering motions that would only serve to confuse
people, lead to a false sense of security, and place public health at risk and our businesses at risk
of closure. We hope that this motion will be tabled, and if it is put forward, open to public
scrutiny, and if necessary, voted down.
Thank you very much for your consideration.