New Zealand Tops Lowy List with Covid Response

New analysis undertaken by Australian think tank the Lowy Institute has found that New Zealand has handled the coronavirus pandemic more effectively than any other country in the world, Stephen Dziedzic reports for ABC News.

Researchers tracked COVID-19 case numbers in each country, as well as confirmed deaths and testing rates, Dziedzic writes for the Australian broadcaster.

The Institute’s Hervé Lemahieu said that smaller countries had typically tackled COVID-19 more effectively than big countries.

“Countries with populations fewer than 10 million people proved more agile, on average, than the majority of their larger counterparts in handling the health emergency,” Lemahieu told the ABC’s Coronacast podcast.

American philanthropist Melinda Gates recently told The Washington Post Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been doing “incredibly well” in her response to the coronavirus.

“It’s interesting even when they were doing well early in the pandemic. I was on the phone with her. What was she thinking about? She was thinking about all the island nations around them and how they were being affected. And I think that’s quite often what an enlightened leader does – whether it an enlightened male or it’s a female leader – they think about their own population, but they also think about all the people around them,” Gates said.

On the Lowy list, New Zealand was closely followed by Vietnam, Taiwan and Thailand, which were ranked second, third and fourth, respectively.

Original article by Stephen Dziedzic, ABC News, January 28, 2021.