far too much attention is paid to individual leaders, omitting their support bases, & structural forces - generally

but leadership clearly matters in the case of covid & forced closures

in SF, G, T, & NZ, risk-averse (female) leaders have triumphed.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-san-francisco-london-breed/609808/

i'm not attributing country trajectories to individual leaders, or claiming those leaders were risk-averse bc they were female.

there are many other factors, clearly.

& the sample is small.

but i do think this signals the importance of diverse personalities in the executive.

(hopefully @economeager isn't reading this thread, as i use covid to confirm my priors).