Ohio Gov. DeWine Says His Order on Face Masks Went ‘Too Far’

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine acknowledged on ABC’s This Week today that his state order on wearing face masks went “too far” in his effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

DeWine talked about encouraging signs in his state as he acknowledged they want to start reopening while continuing to protect people.

At one point Martha Raddatz brought up his “about-face” on masks, saying, “You first announced that everyone would be required to wear face masks when retail opened, and then you reversed yourself when some of your citizens said it was offensive. Talk me through the thinking on that because you were just talking about face masks.”

DeWine said it just went “too far”:

“Face masks are very important and our business group came back and said every employee, for example, should wear a face mask. So we’re continuing that, whether it’s retail or wholesale, whatever it is, manufacturing, every employee’s going to have the face mask. But it became very clear to me after we put out the order that everyone in retail who walked into a store as a customer would have to do that, it became clear to me that that was just a bridge too far, that people were not going to accept the government telling them what to do. And so we put out dozens and dozens of orders, that was one that — it just went too far. But at the same time we pulled that back, I said look this is… unless you have a physical reason you can’t wear the mask, and we understand that, but when you go into a retail store, that is the kind thing to do because I worry and we should all worry about the folks who are stocking shelves in grocery stores, the people who are — the check-out line who work there all day, and we got to try to protect them.”

You can watch above, via ABC News.