UAE has risen to the top spot on Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking, dethroning Europe that has been dominating the top rungs of the Ranking for months.
Bloomberg said the UAE has been one of the most consistent performers since the Ranking’s inception a year ago. Daily cases in the country have stayed below a hundred a day since mid-October, deaths are rare and it’s one of the most vaccinated places in the world with over 200 doses per 100 people.
The Covid Resilience Ranking is a monthly snapshot of where the virus is being handled the most effectively with the least social and economic upheaval, according to Bloomberg.
Compiled using 12 data indicators that span virus containment, quality of healthcare, vaccination coverage, overall mortality and progress toward restarting travel, the Ranking captures how the world’s biggest 53 economies are responding to the same once-in-a-generation threat.
Iraq jumps 21 spots after community mobility surged and domestic life normalized. Schools also resumed in-person classes.
Turkey rises 13 places into the top six after it relaxed some social distancing rules and more provinces were moved out of the high-risk category.
The Bloomberg report said that the “past performance in tackling the pandemic is no guarantee of future success—or failure”.
“Countries have been stymied again and again by the vagaries of the biggest health crisis in a generation, but some have also found ways to turn devastating situations around, whether through science, social cohesion or simply learning from the past,” the report said.
“Over the past year, only seven countries never fell into the bottom half of the Ranking even as the pandemic shape-shifted. Norway, Denmark, Finland, this month’s No. 1 the UAE, Canada, South Korea and Switzerland were the pandemic’s equivalent of season MVPs: whether in containing the virus’ spread, rolling out vaccination, fighting delta or reopening the economy, they consistently scored above average,” it added.
The arrival of vaccines, which have helped curb fatalities, has been a silver lining, and highlighted the importance of funding healthcare research and development.