DeWine On Internet Rumor: “It’s Just Garbage”

COLUMBUS — Gov. Mike DeWine Tuesday debunked a widespread internet rumor that said he was preparing to create “FEMA concentration camps” to house children taken from their parents so they could be put into quarantine.

The supposed “camps” were reportedly to be created to house children who had tested positive for the coronavirus but could not be quarantined at home.

At his briefing, DeWine said he does not comment on rumors often, but in this case he felt compelled to respond.

“It is just has absolutely no truth in this, no substance to it. It is just garbage,” DeWine said.

The governor said he had been bombarded by calls and texts about the rumor over the Labor Day weekend and he wanted to deal with the issue head-on.

DeWine traced the beginning of the rumor back to approval of federal funding for housing in some cases involving the coronavirus. He said some first responders could request the housing if they feared they might infect their family members, so they were put up in hotel rooms temporarily. Then came testing of adults and children in families where one or more members were showing symptoms of the virus.

“In this particular case,” DeWine said, “They took two sets of facts that really had nothing to do with each other and came up with a conspiracy theory.” DeWine also called it “crazy ridiculous.”

Spreading the word of the “camps” was not the sole work of nameless conspiracy theorists on anti-government websites. A prominent Miami Valley state lawmaker also spread the tale of DeWine’s impending plan to separate children from their families and house then against their will.

State Representative Nino Vitale posted an extended version of the false rumor on his Facebook page, complete with a graphic with the text “FEMA Concentration Camps Coming to Ohio…YES!”

Beside that quote is a photo of what appears to be hundreds of tents in a barren landscape. The photo is not from Ohio. It is not even from the United States.

A google search sourced the photo back to an Associated Press story from the Middle East about a refugee camp outside of Amman, Jordan.

DeWine wasn’t the only state leader calling people out for spreading false rumors.

Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof, in a written statement released Tuesday said “There are absolutely not ‘concentration camps’ in Ohio. To suggest otherwise is fearmongering at its worst. This is one of the most patently offensive claims I have ever seen, and any public official who spreads this rumor is unfit for the office that he holds,” Obhof said.

The Senate President did not mention Vitale by name, nor did the governor. DeWine suggested people be careful of information they get on the internet because it has not necessarily been fact-checked for accuracy.

Vitale has become one of DeWine’s biggest critics in the Ohio legislature. He is one of the four lawmakers to support DeWine’s impeachment for his handling of the state’s response to the coronavirus.

Cox Media Group