Americans Are 'Not Ready' For The Country To Re-Open, Says Juliette Kayyem

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds stated the end of April as when the current "bulk of declarations" on business closings will expire.

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

April 29, 2020

Updated August 07, 2023

Iowa's Governor Kim Reynolds is taking steps to re-open up the state, but warnED workers that if they refuse to return when called back to work, ' they will lose their unemployment benefits.'

Homeland security expert Juliette Kayyem spoke with Boston Public Radio on Wednesday about Gov. Reynolds' stance, and how other states are looking to re-open.

"[Gov. Reynolds'] is completely objectionable across the field, there's no defense of it," she said. "What the governor is actually capturing is a real interesting dynamic — and she's on the wrong side of it — which is essentially whatever a governor, president, or mayor says, 80 percent of Americans continue to believe that we are not ready for opening back up."

Kayyem gave the example of Waffle House franchises opening back up in Georgia, but hardly no one going to their re-openingings.

"Our own risk calculation has changed so much so quickly, as we saw in Georgia, you can open up the Waffle House, but they will not come," she said. "The default for now is always going to be social distancing and the other factor is masks are just going to be a part of our lives, period, we will be in masks for the time being."

Kayyem is an analyst for CNN, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.