<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/1/1579206978168.png" alt="Lata Nott is chief content officer of the Freedom Forum." />
 <figcaption>Lata Nott is chief content officer of the Freedom Forum.</figcaption>
 </figure>In times of crisis, safety and freedom may seem like they’re at odds 
with each other. A society that respects individual liberty can’t 
implement the same kinds of drastic laws and policies that a more 
authoritarian one can.This puts more of an onus on citizens of a democracy to make 
responsible choices. As we face a virus that we can easily pass on 
without realizing it, that may not cause any symptoms in those who are 
young and healthy but is potentially deadly to the elderly and those 
with preexisting conditions, we need to keep in mind that our 
independent media and civil society can be assets in this fight, as long
 as we balance our personal freedoms with care and compassion for each 
other.As I write this column,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html" target="_blank">7,038 people have tested positive for&nbsp;COVID-19 in the United States</a>.
 The highly contagious nature of the virus has led Ohio to postpone its 
presidential primary, Washington and Maryland to shut down all 
restaurants and bars (except for delivery and takeout) and California to
 call for all people 65 and older to shelter inside their homes. More 
than 30 states have closed their schools. On Sunday, the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention recommended that no gatherings of 50 
people or more be held in the U.S. for the next eight weeks. On Monday, 
it amended that&nbsp;warning to apply to gatherings of more than 10 people. 
I’m&nbsp;certain that by the time you read this,&nbsp;there will be more cases of 
COVID-19, as well as more shutdowns, both voluntary and mandated by 
state and local officials.All of this was unimaginable last week. Just last month, the 
coronavirus seemed like a rather distant problem,&nbsp;even though the 
first&nbsp;confirmed case in the U.S. occurred in late January. We had 
several weeks to observe China’s handling of&nbsp;COVID-19&nbsp;and at first,&nbsp;a 
lot&nbsp;of our conversations had a tone of reluctant admiration for 
how&nbsp;swiftly an authoritarian government could&nbsp;act in the face of an 
outbreak. In a matter of days, the Chinese government had quarantined 
entire cities, suspended travel, closed schools and businesses and built
 two new specialized hospitals. What democracy could match&nbsp;that?It didn’t take long for&nbsp;the truth to come to light. Not that the 
Chinese government had been censoring information and violating civil 
liberties — that was sort of a given — but that censoring information 
and violating civil liberties actually made the outbreak worse. China’s 
suppression of news about the outbreak prevented health care 
practitioners and individuals from being able to take appropriate 
precautions and hindered officials from being able to coordinate a 
response. As this <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/03/809965742/personal-essay-from-wuhan-living-in-hell" target="_blank">personal essay</a>
 from an anonymous resident of Wuhan put it, “Before this coronavirus, I
 always thought it was OK to sacrifice some level of democracy and 
freedom for better living conditions. But now I have changed my 
attitude. Without democracy and freedom, the truth of the outbreak in 
Wuhan would never be known.”Of course, now that it’s our turn to deal with the virus, it’s hard 
to argue that we’re doing much better. For weeks, the Trump 
administration downplayed the severity of the situation, contradicting 
public health experts and news media reports and delaying containment 
and mitigation efforts. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/what-went-wrong-with-the-coronavirus-tests/2020/03/07/915f5dea-5d82-11ea-b29b-9db42f7803a7_story.html" target="_blank">According to The Washington Post</a>,
 early problems with manufacturing coronavirus tests, “along with an 
initial decision to test only a narrow set of people and delays in 
expanding testing to other labs, gave the virus a head start to spread 
undetected — and helped perpetuate a false sense of security that leaves
 the United States dangerously behind.” Officials in China are <a href="https://qz.com/1813181/china-is-taking-pleasure-in-us-mishandling-of-coronavirus/" target="_blank">reportedly watching our mishandling of the outbreak</a>
 with a “mix of shock and pleasure. They find it hard to believe that 
the world’s top superpower might be bungling its response to the virus, 
even after having had weeks to prepare for its possible arrival.”&nbsp;As the <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean-authorities-used-law-fight-coronavirus" target="_blank">national security law blog Lawfare has pointed out</a>,
 many observers&nbsp;are using the coronavirus as a proxy war for democracies
 versus authoritarian systems. This is,&nbsp;of course, an 
oversimplification, but it does highlight an important truth — civil 
liberties do have an impact on how governments deal with crises. Our 
freedoms of press and speech ensure the free flow of information, but 
they also allow misinformation to spread. And while South Korea, a 
fellow democracy but one with less regard for civil liberties,&nbsp;was able 
to curtail its COVID-19 outbreak by forcibly shutting down&nbsp;a series of 
churches where the virus initially spread, it’s hard to imagine an 
American government official doing the same. Such an action, “might 
register to many Americans as an egregious violation of basic First 
Amendment instincts regarding the freedom of religion, right to assemble
 and separation of church and state.”Our state, city and federal officials do have the power to place people in isolation or quarantine, but that power is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/11/21166621/coronavirus-quarantines-legal-constitution-new-rochelle" target="_blank">tempered by the Constitution</a>
 (the government cannot confine people arbitrarily and without adequate 
explanation) and by the norms of our society (the impact on liberty 
means that these are considered measures of last resort). Officials in 
the U.S. are more likely to recommend that people voluntarily practice 
social distancing. And even when they do make some aspects of this 
behavior compulsory, these policies aren’t nearly as draconian as they 
would be in an authoritarian system. When&nbsp;Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine
 ordered bars, restaurants and recreation centers closed,&nbsp;he added, “we 
hope that Ohioans will follow this advice. Just as with every other law 
or rule, you can’t enforce it every time.” Compare this to language a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/world/asia/china-coronavirus-wuhan.html" target="_blank">Chinese party committee used to discourage citizens from hiding infections</a>:
 “Whoever deliberately delays or conceals reporting for the sake of 
their own interests will be forever nailed to history’s pillar of 
shame.”Our democratic approach means that we run the risk of our citizens not taking the warnings seriously. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
 observed on Monday that, “There are still too many Americans going out 
to restaurants, bars and other public areas as if this is business as 
usual.” In a way, this is the cost of our freedoms. We’ve been advised, 
whether we are healthy or ill, to practice <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/smarter-living/coronavirus-social-distancing.html?action=click&amp;pgtype=Article&amp;state=default&amp;module=styln-coronavirus&amp;variant=show&amp;region=BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT&amp;context=storyline_guide" target="_blank">social distancing</a>,
 by minimizing contact with other people, limiting nonessential travel, 
working from home and avoiding gatherings. But for most of us, this 
isn’t a mandate. Instead, it’s a choice we make — every time we cancel 
plans, stay in our homes and forego human contact for another day. These
 decisions might not make much of a difference to your personal health 
and safety, but can have an outsized impact on the health and safety of 
others. As the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins,
 has said, “I think we as a nation have to get into a place of not just 
thinking about ourselves, but thinking about everybody else around us, 
and particularly the most vulnerable people — those who are older and 
those people with chronic diseases. Young people may have a relatively 
low risk of serious illness, kids seem to have a very low risk, but if 
you want to avoid what could be the deaths of hundreds of thousands of 
people, then it is incumbent on all of us to severely limit our social 
interactions. We need to ask the question about every interaction we 
have and whether it is necessary or not.”It can be quite daunting to realize that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/" target="_blank">flattening the curve</a>
 — slowing the rate of new infections in order to buy researchers more 
time to develop vaccines and give hospitals some respite — is a 
responsibility that falls on all of us as individuals. But the thing 
about democracies is that they’re fundamentally optimistic about human 
nature. We give people civil liberties, knowing full well that some will
 abuse those rights, because we expect that, on the whole, most will use
 them wisely. We protect heinous speech, false information and&nbsp;pointless
 assembly from government crackdowns because we don’t want to risk 
infringing on valuable speech, information and assembly — and with that 
there is&nbsp;an&nbsp;inherent&nbsp;assumption that it’s worth it, that the good 
outweighs the bad.There is no requirement that you exercise your freedoms responsibly, 
but the fact that you have them reflects the underlying belief that you 
will.Lata Nott is chief content officer of the Freedom Forum.&nbsp;Contact her via email at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:lnott@freedomforum.org" target="_blank">lnott@freedomforum.org</a>, or follow her on Twitter at&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/latanott" target="_blank">@LataNott</a>.

FIRST FIVE: In crisis times, balancing safety and freedom