Former Ohio Department of Health (ODH) Director Amy Acton announced on Tuesday that she is running as a Democrat for state governor.
“I’m a doctor, not a politician,” she said in a statement, according to The Hill. “I solve problems by bringing people together regardless of party to find solutions. So unlike most of our leaders I know the answer to moving our state forward isn’t giving politicians more power, it’s giving people more freedom.”
“Today, I filed papers to run for Governor because I refuse to look away from Ohioans who are struggling while self-serving politicians and special interests take our state in the wrong direction,” she added. “It’s time to give power back to the people and our communities. It’s time for a change.”
Acton became a fixture in Ohio households during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the ODH Director during the early days of COVID-19, she led the state’s effort to battle the illness.
She gained national attention from the media for her daily press conferences during the pandemic in 2020.
The New York Times Opinion Section published a video on May 5, 2020, called “Dr. Amy Acton, the Leader We Wish We All Had.”
Furthermore, according to Glamour, she even had a fan club on Facebook that reached over 135,000 members. That fan page no longer exists on Facebook.
Acton also had a bobblehead and a t-shirt made in honor of her. The former health director and Gov. Mike DeWine were featured in a “Laverne and Shelry” parody for the state’s COVID response.
Despite all this national attention, Acton became polarizing as a health director. Republicans, during her tenure as health director, tried to reign in the ODH’s powers while Democrats introduced a bill to name February 26 “Dr. Amy Acton Day.”
At the beginning of COVID-19, Acton predicted that Ohio was operating as if 100,000 people or more had the COVID-19 virus.
“Just the fact of community spread says at least one percent, at the very least one percent of our population, is carrying this virus in Ohio today. We have 11.7 million people, so the math is over 100,000,” Acton said on March 12, 2020.
The next day, Acton said she was “guestimating” that number.
“I am not saying there are absolutely for certain 100,000 people,” Acton said. “I’m saying I’m guesstimating. If I’m guesstimating community spread, that’s my best number.”
After the ODH guestimated this number, between March 15 and March 25, 2020, the health department did not release the COVID-19 testing data. When it became public, the state administered 14,764 tests, with only 704 people returning positive. This accounted for a 4.7 percent positive test rate at the time.
It took till August 1, 2020, for Ohio to get over 100,000 total COVID cases.
On March 27, 2020, at a press conference, Acton predicted by April 19, 2020, Ohio would see as many as 10,000 new cases per day. As of March 26, Ohio had only 15 deaths and 223 hospitalizations.
On April 7, 2020, Acton told Ohioans they needed to brace for a tough couple of weeks as the state entered the projected coronavirus peak. However, when telling people this, she used a graph without any numerical labels to explain Ohio’s coronavirus status.
“We are this blue line in Ohio. Please Ohioans, we got a couple of hard weeks ahead of us,” she said.
After discussing the blue line, Acton said – while pointing at the unlabeled yellow line – that if Ohio relaxes its stay-at-home restrictions, the state will change its trajectory and look like the original yellow curve. (Shown below).
Ohio’s COVID cases did increase, but not near the level of Acton’s prediction. Between April 1, 2020, and May 1, 2020, Ohio saw 17,582 cases and 1,041 deaths, according to ODH data. The average case during these 31 days was 567.
The prediction of 10,000 new cases by April 19, 2020, was off by 700 percent.
In June 2020, she stepped down as director of the ODH. She remained a chief health advisor to DeWine until August 5, 2020. She returned to work at the Columbus Foundation on September 1, 2020.
Acton did not last long at the foundation because, on February 4, 2021, Acton left her position and, at the time, was considered to be a Democratic candidate for Ohio in 2022. She did not run for Senate in 2022.
Other people expected to run, according to The Hill, are Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted and former Democratic Representative Tim Ryan.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected]. Follow Zachery on Twitter @zacheryschmidt2.
