With Governor Kim Reynolds recently announcing relaxed COVID-19 restrictions in 77 of Iowa’s 99 counties, one state lawmaker is reacting to the decision.

Iowa District 24 Senator Jerry Behn of Boone agrees with the governor’s decision to open some of the state’s counties.

“Any that were actually relaxed to help people get by in this emergency type time, then my question is, ‘Then why did we need them in the first place?’ We want to be sure that we don’t hamper the re-opening or the growth of the economy again, once we get rolling here, we don’t want unnecessary regulations to hamper that.”

Behn points out he has concerns about people from the 22 counties that do not have relaxed COVID-19 restrictions traveling to counties that do and possibly seeing higher case numbers in the other 77 counties.

“I don’t know how you can address all of that. It appears to me – based on what I’m seeing – there are a lot more people that have actually had it (COVID-19) that didn’t even know they had it or had such a mild case of it, they thought it was something else. I’m thinking that the numbers are dramatically higher than what everybody thinks it is.”

Behn adds due to COVID-19 concerns, the legislature managed to push the end of the current fiscal year’s budget for the state to August 31st, but can adjust that if needed.