Among 98 countries, India ranked 86th in a coronavirus performance index, while New Zealand, Vietnam and Taiwan have been ranked the top three spots, respectively.
The Covid Performance Index was conducted by the Australia-based Lowy Institute and was published recently to measures the performance of countries. The institute is an independent international policy think tank, located in Sydney.
The index aims to rank the best-performing countries in their response to the pandemic. It measures the impact of geography, political systems, population size, and economic development on COVID-19 outcomes, for a conclusion.
The index tracked six measures of COVID-19 to assess the performance of countries which are:
Countries were sorted into broad categories on the basis of regions, political systems, population size, and economic development. This was done to determine the variations that may have existed in the way different nations handled the pandemic.
Out of 98 countries, New Zealand received the highest score at 94.4, followed by Vietnam at 90.8, Taiwan at 86.4, and Thailand at 84.2.
India has ranked 86th in a coronavirus performance index out of 98 countries
The lowest score was given to Brazil at 4.3. Mexico, Colombia, Iran and the United States too featured among the bottom five countries in terms of performance.
Sri Lanka was the best performing nation in South Asia ranking at 10, while the Maldives was at 25, Pakistan at 69, Nepal at 70, and Bangladesh at 84.
An average of these indicators was calculated and each country was given a score from 0 (worst performing) to 100 (best performing).
Publicly available and comparable data on Covid-19 response was used for this index. China was excluded from the list due to lack of publicly available data.
Categorising countries based on their population size revealed the greatest differences in experiences with the COVID-19 challenge. These results stand even after taking into account per capita indicators to evaluate performance, minimising the likelihood of a methodological bias against countries with more infections because they have larger populations. The fact that internal borders are often more open and porous than international borders may have facilitated the spread of the virus within countries with larger populations.
The tools to contain the spread of COVID-19, stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and border closures, have been common to most countries. But how governments convinced or compelled their citizens to adhere to these measures often reflected the nature of their political systems. No single political system has, at this point, stood out as being significantly or consistently more effective at managing the health crisis.
It is perhaps unsurprising that countries with higher per capita incomes had more resources available to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and performed better on average than developing countries for most of the crisis to date.