Jared Kushner says that after the country reopens 'it will be very hard for America to ever lock down again'

• White House adviser Jared Kushner predicted that once states across the country loosen social distancing requirements, they'll have a "very hard" time shutting back down again.
• "I really believe that once America opens up, it'll be very hard for America to lock down again," Kushner told TIME in an interview released Tuesday evening.
• As President Donald Trump and his allies are pushing for a swift reopening, health experts leading the federal government's pandemic response warn that the virus will resurge without proper mitigation in place.
• As of May 13, the US has seen more than 82,000 deaths from covid-19 and nearly 1.4 million confirmed infections.
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Jared Kusher, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and top White House adviser, predicted that once states across the country loosen social distancing requirements and reopen businesses, it will be "very hard" for the country to shut down again, even if the coronavirus resurges.

"I really believe that once America opens up, it'll be very hard for America to lock down again," Kushner, who is helping lead the White House pandemic response, told TIME in an interview released Tuesday evening.

Trump and his allies, including Kushner, are pushing for a swift reopening of the economy as more then 30 million Americans are newly unemployed. But top health experts, including those leading the administration's coronavirus task force, say many states aren't prepared to prevent a resurgance of the virus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, warned during a Senate hearing on Tuesday that if states aren't able to effectively mitigate new outbreaks, the reopening process will be dangerously uncontrolled.

"The consequences could be really serious if cities, states, or what have you jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up, without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently," Fauci said.

Most of these 30 states that are already reopening or looking to relax social distancing soon haven't met the Trump administration's national guidelines to do so, according to a recent New York Times analysis.

On April 29, Kushner declared that the federal government's response to the pandemic had been "a great success story" and said he hopes that, by July, the country will be "really rocking again." The comments provoked ridicule as the virus continued to spread across the country and surge in areas that had avoided early outbreaks.

As of May 13, the US has seen more than 82,000 deaths from covid-19 and nearly 1.4 million confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins data.