INSIDER TODAY: What's the right balance?

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SUMMARY: Some people think we should just get tough and go back to life and business as usual. Do they have a point? Also, are women leaders great because they're women — or because we have so many lousy male leaders? The coronavirus hasn't killed innovation. And even President Trump thinks Georgia's reopening too early.

What's the right balance?

Despite some recent protests, a slew of recent polls show Americans overwhelmingly support the country's coronavirus-mitigation measures and think it's too early to relax them.

Still, there are persistent voices calling for "freedom," at least from government-mandated restrictions.

In its hard-line form, this latter sentiment is expressed in Darwinian terms: Let nature do its thing. Let the virus spread, let us develop "herd immunity," and let us be done with it. Or as a sign in a recent protest put it: "sacrifice the weak."

That view is draconian, but, in less-callous form, you can see why some find it appealing, especially in areas of the country where there have been few cases, hospitals are empty, and anti-government sentiment runs high.

There are also people who view the coronavirus as just one of many "risks of being alive."

Then there are many people who are simply asking, "what's the right balance?" We can't hide forever. We can't eliminate all risks in life. "Non-pharmaceutical" approaches aren't binary—there are lesser and more stringent forms. So what is the best balance between taking reasonable precautions, especially for the most vulnerable members of society, and also carefully resuming our lives?

That's a good and fair question.

The pain of the shutdown is real. This pandemic is causing vast and tragic damage to our economy and livelihoods. It's destroying our businesses. It's screwing up our social lives and mental health. It's depriving us of company, entertainment, intimacy, and serendipity. It's diminishing many of the best parts of being alive.

Also, life is risky. We do accept more deaths and injuries in exchange for certain freedoms than we would if safety were our only concern. We allow people to drive, for example. We allow people to own swimming pools, drink and smoke, and skydive. We even allow people to buy assault weapons, a freedom that a lot of us wish we didn't allow. All of these freedoms kill people — including people who think we shouldn't have those freedoms. (Just ask the families of mass-shooting victims).

As the shutdowns drag on, and estimates for the "return to normal" lengthen from months to years, support for a more Darwinian approach will likely grow. After all, we all want to get back to normal as soon as we can.

Should we just do that now?

Should we give up on restrictions, reopen the whole country, and just power through this thing?

No.

We should stick with what we're doing: Try to mitigate the impact while moving toward a reasonable, balanced reopening plan.

Why?

Because it's the smart thing to do. And it's the right thing to do.

The approach we are taking isn't just the best approach for our health. It's also the best approach for our economy. Studies of the 1918 flu epidemic concluded that places that shut down earlier and longer not only had fewer deaths — they recovered faster economically.

Also, it's not the "government" that's causing our pain. It's the virus.

We cannot and will not have a strong economy again until we feel safe. And it won't be a government edict that makes us feel safe. It will be visible evidence that the epidemic is under control and that it's safe for our families, friends, and colleagues to eat out, travel, and gather in big groups again.

As for morality, although we love our rugged individualism, we're all in this together. As a species and civilization, we've moved past having to "sacrifice the weak." We can now aim higher than that.

Someday, we'll be able to rebuild our economy and our businesses. We'll be able to reconstruct our social lives. We'll be able to resume our activities.

What we won't be able to do is bring back friends, family, and colleagues we lost because we lacked patience and fortitude.

All of us want this misery to end.

And it will.

In the meantime, we're doing the right thing. — HB

It's not that our women leaders are so great. It's that the men suck.

There's been a torrent of praise this week for women's leadership during the pandemic.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's empathy, fast action, and clear communications in New Zealand have been credited with keeping caseloads low. Former chemist and current Chancellor Angela Merkel has been lauded for Germany's efficient lockdown and low mortality. Iceland, Norway, and Denmark — all led by women — have handled the pandemic better than some of their neighbors.

Does the fact that these leaders are women explain their success?

It's generally true that women in politics are often consensus builders, and this is a crisis that requires building consensus, both among the public and in government response.

People in every country long for empathy and calm, and women politicians tend to be good at that — in part because women leaders are punished for showing anger or engaging in belligerent behavior, while that's forgiven or rewarded in men. It also helps that the praise-worthy women I mentioned come from orderly societies with well-functioning governments and high degrees of social trust.

My own theory is not that these women are doing such a great job at responding to the crisis — they've done a solid job guided by sound science. It's that we have an extraordinarily bad crop of men leading most of the world's biggest nations, and these women look exceptional by contrast.

Thanks to the global spread of nationalism and populism coupled with the withering of international institutions, the world is suffering from a glut of strongmen, male leaders who are belligerent, uncooperative, nationalistic, often dishonest, often uninterested in science, and egotistical.

President Trump is a particularly vivid example, but they're everywhere: Bolsonaro in Brazil, Putin in Russia, Duterte in the Philippines, Orban in Hungary, Xi in China, MBS in Saudi Arabia, Erdogan in Turkey, and many more. This is a recent phenomenon: Five years ago, there were fewer such men in power, and the few there were didn't feel as emboldened as they do today.

What Ardern and Merkel are doing is not remarkable or revolutionary or particularly female: clear communication, respect for experts, and empathy are basic building blocks for good leadership.

They only seem heroic because so many of their male counterparts are such a tragic contrast, and so poorly suited for this crisis. — DP

One thing the coronavirus hasn't killed is innovation

A pair of fascinating stories about how two companies have successfully adapted to this crisis...

Insider's Hayley Peterson recounts how the grocery chain Kroger changed staffing schedules, in-store announcements, cleaning schedules, employee training, hours of operation, and everything else to adjust to COVID-19.

A small bank in Nebraska, meanwhile — Union Bank & Trust — found a way to deliver more Paycheck Protection Program loans within 72 hours of the funds being available than all but one other bank in the country.

The Washington Post shared the latter story, which goes like this:

Big banks slow-walked their PPP loans, took days to create application forms, and then focused on their richest customers, cutting the vast majority of loan seekers out of the first $349 billion of PPP funds. Union Bank & Trust, by contrast, figured out in advance that the Small Business Association's loan processing system E-Tran would be the bottleneck and sought SBA approval to train 20 employees to use it. The bank's developers wrote new software to enable online applications as soon as PPP opened.

Union Bank & Trust wasn't acting altruistically: They made good money on every loan. But their creativity and nimbleness helped their hometown customers, too.

What Kroger and Union Bank & Trust have in common is that they did three hard things at the same time:

• They moved fast and adapted quickly.
• They acted decisively without guidance from the government.
• They took reasonable risks to help more people and get more business.

Big banks like Citi hesitated for days before launching PPP services because they wanted to make sure they wouldn't be held responsible for bad loans. Big banks also only served their own customers. Union Bank & Trust launched on the first day, and gave loans to non-customers.

Not all businesses can be a Kroger or Union Bank & Trust. We don't want movie theaters moving to reopen too fast. But it's great to see that nimble and creative still works. — DP

While you were watching the pandemic…

The EPA rolled back mercury regulations, over the opposition of both activists and industry. — DP

Even President Trump thinks Georgia is reopening too early

Given his tweets last week urging Virginia and other states to "liberate" themselves from the shutdown guidelines that he himself imposed, the President's remarks about Georgia's decision to reopen were surprising.

As Insider's Sonam Sheth reported, President Trump said he disagreed strongly with the decision.

Instead, the President urged caution and patience.

"I think it's too soon," Trump said. "I love the people. I love those people that use all of those things, the spas and beauty parlors and barbershops and tattoo parlors. I love them. But they can wait a little bit longer, just a little bit, not much, because safety has to predominate."

Well done, Mr. President.

Historical evidence and common sense say there's little to be gained by rushing to reopen—and potentially a lot to lose. As we note above, re-opening when everyone's still scared of the virus won't save the economy, but it will risk a second surge. Also, in the 1918 flu epidemic, the cities that reopened too early often had to shut back down. And they ended up spending much more total time under restrictions. — HB

Thanks for reading, everyone! Please let us know what you think. henry@insider.com and david@insider.com