Coronavirus: Think tank ranks Cyprus fifth among countries for handling Covid (updated)

Cyprus ranks fifth in a Covid Performance Index of almost 100 countries for its successful handling of the coronavirus pandemic published by think tank Lowy Institute on Thursday.

New Zealand, Vietnam and Taiwan rank the top three in the index with Britain and America are near the bottom of the pile.

Cyprus is in fifth place after Thailand, and Rwanda is ranked sixth. Other countries in the top ten are Iceland, Australia, Latvia and Sri Lanka – countries with fewer reported cases and deaths both in aggregate and per capita terms.

The Lowy Institute said its index excludes China, where the first cases were identified in December 2019, due to a lack of publicly available data.

In total, 98 countries were evaluated in the 36 weeks that followed their hundredth confirmed case of Covid-19, using data available to January 9, 2021.

Fourteen-day rolling averages of new daily figures were calculated for confirmed cases, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths, confirmed deaths per million people, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests, and tests per thousand people, the Lowy Institute said.

The report comes as world coronavirus cases surpass 100 million with the death toll exceeding 2 million.

In Cyprus 193 people have died from Covid, while by Wednesday a total of 30,380 cases had been recorded.

The United States, with over 25 million confirmed cases, ranked 94, while India, with more than 11 million cases, was 86th. Britain, with the highest number of the deaths in Europe, stood at 66th. Brazil and Mexico were at the bottom of the list.

The index showed countries in Asia-Pacific proved the most successful in containing the pandemic, while Europe and the United States were “quickly overwhelmed” by the rapid spread of Covid-19.

“Levels of economic development or differences in political systems between countries had less of an impact on outcomes than often assumed or publicised,” the Sydney-based Lowy Institute said in its analysis.

“In general, countries with smaller populations, cohesive societies, and capable institutions have a comparative advantage in dealing with a global crisis such as a pandemic.”

Vietnam, which has used targeted testing and a centralised quarantine programme to successfully contain the coronavirus reported its first locally-transmitted case of Covid-19 for 55 days on Thursday.

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