We are standing at one and a half years since the pandemic started. While the developed countries are running fast to reopen, the developing countries are still struggling to negotiate about buying vaccines. Therefore, normalization is the only thing to define the best and worst places to be in the era of Covid-19.

Currently, the world is seeing the largest vaccination movement in history. Vaccines are a major prevention to fight the pandemic. It can relax the quarantine or lockdown restriction, eliminate the mask mandate and boost the border reopening process. Throughout the last one and half years, we have seen taming cases and millions of deaths, even the robust health care system bumped into it. Now, getting back to the pre-pandemic world is the only thing we can wish for.

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Reopening and getting back to the pre-pandemic phase is not an easy task either. Data and media company Bloomberg looked at the factors to reopen and ranked the countries accordingly through their Covid Resilience Ranking. Since the beginning, this data-driven company has been tracking the pandemic situation. Now, they have included new metrics such as “how much air travel has recovered?” to identify the reopening progress.

Top Countries in the Reopen List

As per Bloomberg, the USA is now No.1 in the race to reopen. Thanks to their expensive and fast vaccine rollout. Americans are getting the highly effective Messenger RNA shots to fight against the world’s worst outbreak.

Further, some European countries such as Switzerland, Spain, and France are also doing great in the reopening process. These countries are already welcoming vaccinated tourists.

Some parts of the Asia Pacific, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia, still enforced border closure. Their zero-tolerance approaches, even to the small virus flare ups, hold them back from reopening.

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However, powerful nations like the USA and UK have faced a high mortality rate and also left deep scars. While the USA recovered and fought back fast, the UK is still struggling with the new variant Delta. That is why the UK is taking time to reopen.

New Zealand and Singapore are known as “Covid Heavens” as they isolated themselves from the outside world. Lengthy quarantines and border curbs help those Covid Heavens to keep the cases near to zero. Now, New Zealand ranked 2 and Singapore ranked 13 in the reopening process. Internally these countries have largely returned to normal like the pre-pandemic situation. Apart from these small countries, large country Australia also played pretty well.

Australians also kept them isolated since March last year. Sydney has faced a two-week lockdown after the detection of few locally transmitted infections. Other than that, Aussies are leading a normal life.

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While most of the third world countries are stuck in the cycle of lockdowns, these countries’ internal freedom is something that keeps the top 10 in the ranking.

Overall, thanks to the quick vaccine supplies that boosts the reopening process worldwide.

Bottom Countries in Reopening List

Bloomberg has considered 53 countries to rank. As per the data, most of the Asian countries fall at the bottom due to several factors, such as the slow vaccination drive and growing outbreaks. Latin American countries are also lagging behind in the race, along with India and the Philippines. A new storm with different variations and a lack of vaccination drive are the main reasons to fall back.

Other countries at the bottom are Argentina, Malaysia, Indonesia, Colombia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. These countries are facing problems with the new variant as well as the low vaccinating rate.

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Opening Up Factors

Alongside the progress on vaccination, the severity of the lockdown, Bloomberg considered tracking down the travel as another factor. The flight capacity is calculated through the “number of plane seats in the past four weeks versus the same period in 2019.” On the other hand, the vaccinated Travel Routes consider the freedom of movement for the vaccinated people around the world.

The USA ranked top due to their recovery rate of flight capacity alongside the high vaccinations. Nevertheless, vaccination is what makes people safe. And Israel, in this case, ranked fourth as they covered 60% of the total population and normal life is getting back.

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However, vaccination is not the only factor to make people safe and open up their normal life. For example, the UK covered 57.1% of the population, but they are yet to reopen as the Delta variant is on the surge in the UK. But vaccinated people are enjoying all the freedoms, pubs are busy, and people are allowed to go to some foreign destination.

Declining Waves

Vaccine front runners have been experiencing a decline covid deaths. European Union member states have covered 40% of the population and adopted quarantine free entry for the inoculated travelers. As per Bloomberg’s Vaccinated Travel Route indicator Spain, Romania and Switzerland are mostly connected with the other parts of the world.

Some countries also proved that border closing is not the only solution. For example, Egypt and Mexico did not close the border during the pandemic, the scores high in the Travel Route Metrics. However, the corona situation is getting worse as per the recent data.

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The Asia-Pacific countries that highly relied on shutting down the border have faced the lowest mortality rates. But they are slow in the reopening process. Countries like Australia and New Zealand vaccinated less than 15% of their population, which scored them poorly in reopening. However, the onerous travel and border closure kept the virus at bay but made them isolated.

On the other hand, Chaina’s international borders are closed, but it scores high on the flight capacity as the local flights were active. Alternately, the countries that don’t have domestic air travel, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, scored worse in the flight capacity.

Tracking the Pandemic

We have seen that the UK and USA lost ground last year, but they are recovering rapidly this year and rising in the Covid Resilience Ranking. Their investment in research has changed the momentum. The USA has invested around $18 billion to develop the Covid-19 vaccines.

Nations that moved first on taking shots are experiencing the advantage. For example, Israel’s early mRNA shots prevent the person from developing Covid as well as contracting and transmitting too. However, vaccines that follow the traditional techniques are likely to perform less.

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Where the majority of the population is inoculated, the infection rates significantly decreased. Unlike the first world countries, the developing nations are moving oppositely as they are yet to start inoculating vastly. The lack of purchasing power alongside the supply shortfall works as a significant factor here. Hence, now the death toll is increasing in the world’s most vulnerable and poorest part.

Handling the Covid

Differences in immunity have worked as a threat to the world as lesser immune people are likely to get affected. That being said, the new strain igniting the new wave and even the USA warned their unvaccinated people as vulnerable to the Delta variant.

The growing crisis due to the new variant in the developing countries puts pressure on developed countries to come forward and spread the help. US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and other five leaders promised to donate hundreds of millions of doses to the developing countries while billions of doses are needed. However, China is working to fill some of that gap through its vaccine. China is currently helping Brazil, Chile, and Indonesia through a bilateral deal.

Read Covid-19: Countries racing to vaccinate before Delta takes hold

Containment Formula

Some of the world’s most prominent democracies have underperformed in the corona situation, which raises the question if the democratic societies are failed to tackle the pandemic?

However, Bloomberg’s data oppose that as the majority of the countries in the Covid Resilience Ranking are democratic. But, the data also suggest that the citizen’s faith in the government is necessary for tackling the pandemic. For example, South Korea and Japan showed the power of guidance through most of 2020.

The USA and New Zealand, on the other hand, gave importance to communication via a four-level alert system. They gave a clear picture of how and why the government acted fast.

Investment in public health is also an important factor fighting the Covid-19. Countries that acted fast in contract tracing systems, forcing people to wear a face mask and effective testing ranked top in Bloomberg’s list. However, the wealthy nations stay ahead in the game as they bet on vaccines too.

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What Next?

Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking gives an idea about the 53 countries that play a bigger role in the world’s economy. The data tried to forecast the possibilities of shifting the pandemic and the places that exit the pandemic at different speeds.

However, this data is not the final verdict. Given the imperfection of the new variants and the vaccination, the ratio can drive a new phase worldwide.

But in the last one and half years, the governments and populations got a better understanding of the virus. Hence, the world needs to be prepared for any circumstances.

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