‘It’s Time That We Put the Burden on Them’: CNN NatSec Analyst Makes Case for Banning Unvaccinated From Flights
Juliette Kayyem doesn’t think her proposal to ban the unvaccinated from domestic flights is all that radical.
She made her case for the policy in a piece for The Atlantic this week, and has incurred the wrath of conservative media as a result. I called her up on Wednesday to discuss her argument for this week’s episode of The Interview podcast.
Kayyem — a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a CNN national security analyst — argued the policy would encourage the vaccine-hesitant to get inoculated, while also slowing the spread of coronavirus around the country.
“There’s no such thing as a federal mandate,” explained Kayyem, who previously served as an assistant Homeland Security secretary under the Obama administration. “But the federal government can use carrots and sticks and and privileges and burdens. And one of the areas where it can do that is obviously on airline travel because the US government sets the rules and conditions for it.”
Kayyem sees her proposal as preferable to something like a nationwide mask mandate, which would put the burden of the pandemic on the majority at a time when safe and effective vaccines are readily available.
“I think using those levers to demand the right behavior is totally appropriate at this stage rather than the burden being imposed on the majority,” she said. “You let individuals determine their risk level when your baseline is vaccines.”
“The government is just sort of wishing that people would take vaccines, like now we have to make it hurt, hurt in terms of a burden to not take vaccines.”
Kayyem pointed out that polls show most of the unvaccinated are not “never vaxxers,” but actually in the “wait and see” category, which means they need the right incentives to push them towards inoculation. A recent poll found 41 percent of the vaccine hesitant would get closer to their shots if there were a vaccine requirement for flying.
I asked Kayyem what she made of the criticism of her proposal, and what she would say to those who argue putting the unvaccinated on a no-fly list is extreme government overreach.
“It’s not unless you think it’s a right to fly. And it’s not, any more than if you thought it was a right for me to… go to The Lion King on Broadway. These are not rights. These are privileges.”
Kayyem also believes that her proposal is not an unrealistic one. She pointed out that Delta CEO Ed Bastian said “stay tuned” when asked if the airline would require vaccines to fly. Bastian kicked the can down the road, maintaining that “it’s very difficult” for the airline to mandate vaccines before they have been fully approved by the FDA.
We also discussed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement that New York City is rolling out its own vaccine requirements, and what the next stage of the pandemic will look like.
Download the full episode now, and subscribe to The Interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
