THINK TANK RATES NEW ZEALAND’S COVID RESPONSE AS THE BEST

New Zealand had the best response to the coronavirus pandemic worldwide, according to a new analysis by Australian think tank Lowy Institute, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

The think tank compared how 98 countries with "publicly available and comparable data" managed the pandemic in the 36 weeks that followed their 100th confirmed case of COVID-19.

Among the G7 countries, Japan was the highest ranked at 45, followed by Germany (55), Italy (59), Canada (61), Britain (66), France (73), and the United States (94).

The analysis - which among other things took into consideration the number of cases, deaths and tests per thousand people - found New Zealand managed the outbreak best, and was closely followed by Vietnam, Taiwan and Thailand.

Australia was ranked eighth. The institute found that countries in the Asia-Pacific were on average most successful in containing the pandemic despite the fact that the outbreak started in China, which was not included in the ranking due to "a lack of publicly available data on testing."

According to the study, Europe registered the greatest improvement over time of any region before being overwhelmed by a more severe second wave in the back end of 2020. Meanwhile, things got progressively worse in much of the Americas, making it the worst affected continent globally, with six of the seven worst-affected countries located in the continent.

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