Ukraine is among the countries with the worst coronavirus response, according to a new study, Covid Performance Index, released by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, on Jan. 27.
The researchers collected and compared publicly available data on the virus from 98 countries that openly publish such information to estimate how well these countries handled the pandemic. Every country was granted from 0 to 100 points.
Ukraine ranked 90th out of the 98 countries, scoring 20.7 points.
New Zealand came first, scoring 94.4 out of 100 points, while Brazil proved the worst having managed to gain only 4.3 points.
The researchers examined the 36-week period after every country’s 100th confirmed case of COVID-19, using the data available as of Jan. 9, 2021.
The researchers calculated 14-day rolling averages using several indicators including confirmed cases, deaths, cases and deaths per 1 million people, cases as a proportion of tests, and tests per 1,000 people.
At the bottom of the performance ranking, Ukraine is in the company of Guatemala, Chile, Oman, Panama, Bolivia, the U.S., Iran, Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil.
Ukraine’s neighbors did better. Russia scored 32 points and ranked 76th, while Belarus gained 39.7 points and ended up at the 60th place in the ranking.
New Zealand, which, the researchers concluded, has demonstrated the best response to the pandemic, is followed by Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Cyprus, Rwanda, Iceland, Australia, Latvia, and Sri Lanka.
The researchers were unable to assess China’s efforts to curb the virus, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan province in 2019, because the country lacks publicly available data on testing.
