The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic. The disease has posed several challenges to nations across the globe ranging from public health management to the economy and has exposed the basic premise of how countries had lacked an evidence-based health intelligence strategy.
The role of big data and analytics has been amplified even further during this pandemic, and it helps us understand not only the emerging disease pattern but also what countries could have done to keep their health and social systems stable.
The Deep Knowledge Group has released a global safety assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic across 200 countries and territories. It classified, analyzed and ranked the economic, social and health stability of the different countries as well as the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats or risks they possess or face.
The analysis found that Switzerland is the safest country due to a continuing decline in its infection and mortality rates as well as key factors that put it in a position to maintain a strong post-pandemic economy. Germany takes the second-safest country spot, and Israel comes third.
Even though the United States and the United Kingdom experienced devastating coronavirus outbreaks, they are still 58th and 68th for COVID-19 safety in the analysis. According to the report, the U.S. situation is interesting and that despite its high infection and mortality rates, it still possesses a high degree of healthcare sophistication and strong technologies for monitoring and protection.
The analysis states that Canada, by contrast, has been much slower to relax its lockdown and social distancing mandates and to re-open its economy. This, combined with the fact that its overall death rate and infection spread rate are on the downward trend, and its comparatively positive scores overall 6 categories included in the present analysis, are some of the factors indicating its exceptionally high regional safety score. According to this analysis, Canada takes the 12th position, wedged between UAE at 11th and HongKong on the 13th.
Of the six categories each country was ranked, Canada scored 8th in quarantine efficiency, 6th in monitoring and detection, 37th in healthcare readiness, 12th in regional resiliency, 17th in emergency preparedness and 11th in government efficiency.
Africa is exceptionally vulnerable to the spread of the disease due to poor healthcare infrastructure and Sudan, Rwanda, Mali and Chad are the study’s worst-ranked countries. India takes the 56th spot, and Pakistan 148th.
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