Which country is happiest during a pandemic: they updated the world rankings

The coronavirus has hardly changed the ranking of the happiest countries in the world, with Finland in the lead for the fourth year in a rowa UN-sponsored annual report announced Friday.

Researchers from World Happiness Report used Gallup data requesting of people in 149 countries who rate their own happiness, also taking into account measures such as GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption in each nation.

Once again, the first places were dominated by European countries: Finland in first place, Denmark in second and Switzerland in third. They are followed by Iceland and the Netherlands. New Zealand, which fell from one place to ninth place, was again the only non-European nation in the top ten.

Other climbers were Germany, which went from 17 to 13, and France, which reached 21. The United KingdomDuring this time, he moved from 13th to 17th place, while United States dropped one place, to 19.

Costa Rica is the first Latin American country on this list, in 16th place, followed by Uruguay (31st), Brazil (35th), Mexico (36th), Panama (41st) and Chile (43rd). Argentina is in 57th place.

African countries Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe were at the bottom of the table, but ahead Afghanistan, which was ranked this year as the most miserable country in the world.

The authors also compared this year’s data with averages from previous years for measure the impact of the pandemic and found “a significantly higher frequency of negative emotions“In just over a third of the countries.

But positive emotions have increased in 22 countries, and “surprisingly, there was, on average, no decrease in well-being when measured by people’s own assessment of lives,” he said. John Helliwell, one of those responsible for the report, in a statement.

“One possible explanation is that people view COVID-19 as a common external threat that affects everyone and this has generated a greater sense of solidarity and camaraderie.“, He said.

Meanwhile, author Jeffrey Sachs warned that “we urgently need to learn from COVID-19And added: “We should aim for well-being rather than just wealth. “

Finland, which throughout the health crisis has reported some of the lowest incidences of the coronavirus in Europe, “ranked very high in mutual confidence building measures that have helped protect lives and livelihoods during the pandemicThe authors said.

Despite the long winters and the fact that its inhabitants have a reputation for not being expressive and very lonely, Finland has a high standard of living, functional public services, many forests and lakes and has very positive rates in terms of solidarity and the fight against poverty and inequalities.

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