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Juliette Kayyem

I’ve spent 4 years dealing with Arab and Muslim immigrant vilification so excuse the delight in highlighting this about another leader on CovidVaccine: Noubar Afeyan, an immigrant from Lebanon, is the co-founder and chairman of Moderna.

https://businessinsider.com/moderna-chairman-coronavirus-vaccine-power-of-immigrants-2020-11…

https://twitter.com/juliettekayyem/status/1331265286402678791?lang=en

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/06/23/juliette-kayyem/

The first thing you notice about Juliette Kayyem is her distinctive voice: authoritative, assertive, but always reassuring. It’s the sound of a well-informed friend, or, as she calls herself, a “security mom,” passing on practical wisdom to help you rest easy and feel in control. It’s also one of the reasons why the Harvard Kennedy School senior lecturer, who served in the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, working on everything from the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 to the BP oil spill, has emerged as a go-to analyst for CNN and WGBH during the COVID-19 crisis. In between preparing for classes and her next broadcast, Kayyem took a break to talk politics, pandemics, and what we can all expect to happen next.

What do you say to the conspiracy theorists who are saying this virus came from a lab in Wuhan, that it’s Anthony Fauci’s fault, and that he funded the lab?

The national and international analysis from people who are in the know, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said publicly that there is just simply no evidence that it came from a lab. The reason why that’s important is because if this is not going to happen again, we’re going to have to deal with the root causes of how these novel viruses are forming, which, at least in this case, is a food system that has a lot of gaps in China. China was an incredibly bad actor, from keeping the markets open that they’ve been told for years are where all sorts of bad viruses started, to keeping it quiet until they couldn’t any longer and they had to call the World Health Organization.

But there will always be conspiracy theorists, and not only are they wrong, but, of course, in a pandemic, they’re incredibly dangerous.

What did you get Anderson Cooper as a baby gift?

I didn’t. I just sent a text. I know. I’m so bad, but it’s not like I know him that well. We’ll meet occasionally when I’m in New York. He’s super nice, both him and Don, and they take their jobs pretty seriously.

How do you approach your role on CNN?

I think about what I want the viewer to take away from it, and generally that might be just one idea. Like yesterday, the idea was the confidence index.

Who’s the person you wish was in charge of a public COVID response?

Well, maybe because I’m good friends with him, but I think Ron Klain is really good at stuff like this. He was the Ebola czar for Barack Obama. Someone who knows how to move things along. That’s all this is, honestly. Making the vaccine? That’s rocket science. That stuff is hard. But the rest of this is just testing kits and manufacturing swabs and getting enough supplies mass-manufactured. It’s just logistics. And you don’t need a medical degree to do it.