Singapore destroys New Zealand as best place to pass pandemic

New Zealand was first dethroned as the best place to be during the coronavirus pandemic, due to its slow vaccination campaign. The country was recently replaced by Singapore in the ranking of the resilience of Bloomberg, which uses a wide range of data to capture where the health crisis is most effectively managed, with the least social and economic disruption, from death and screening rates to access to vaccines and freedom to movement.

While the two countries have all but eliminated the circulation of the virus, vaccination in Singapore is much more advanced. Although life is relatively normal in both countries, “Singapore has already administered equivalent vaccines to cover a fifth of its population,” while New Zealand – along with Australia and Taiwan – lags behind, concludes The report.

Other countries, such as Poland and Canada drop in index rankings, despite rising vaccination rates. In many cases, their governments relaxed restrictions when they started vaccinating the population, triggering high rates of infection with the new variants before reaching sufficiently high levels of immunity.

After being hailed internationally for its response to Covid-19, New Zealand has been criticized for slow launch of vaccination campaign. For its part, the government says it will have vaccinated its entire voluntary and eligible population by the end of the year, and vaccines will be available to all adults around July.

So far, the country is meeting its monthly targets, and officials say the deployment will increase dramatically in the coming months, but still, only 4.5% of the target population have received an injection to date. During, the New Zealand border is still closed for most international tourists.

In statements to The Guardian Earlier this month, University of Auckland vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris said New Zealand may have started preparations to launch the vaccine earlier. The national immunization registry, which records vaccines and second doses, was out of date, he said: “It had to be implemented and this, I would say, should have happened much sooner and should have been. much more advanced. “

New Zealand’s healthcare system has never been overwhelmed with handling a large number of cases, so it should have been prepared, he added.

The Covid-19 resilience rating is updated monthly and calculates a final “resilience score”. New Zealand’s score this month fell 0.1 points to 79.6. For its part, Singapore tops the standings with a score of 79.7. The database ranks 52 economies, valued at more than $ 200 billion before the pandemic. Australia closely followed New Zealand in third place.

THE NATION