Study: Brazil Has Been Worst Country in Handling Pandemic; New Zealand Best

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian public management of the Covid-19 pandemic is the worst in the world, while New Zealand’s is the best, according to a study published this Thursday, January 28th by an Australian think tank.

The Lowy Institute in Sydney analyzed close to 100 countries according to six criteria, such as confirmed cases, deaths and detection capacity.

“Collectively, these indicators point to how well or badly countries have managed the pandemic,” according to this independent institution’s analysis.

In addition to New Zealand – which has virtually eradicated the virus with “early and drastic” border closures, lockdowns and diagnostic tests – Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Cyprus, Rwanda, Iceland, Australia, Latvia and Sri Lanka are among the top 10 countries in their response to the pandemic. At the bottom of the list are Brazil (98th), Mexico, Colombia, Iran and the United States.

Brazil registers over 218,000 coronavirus deaths, the country with the most lives lost behind only the United States.

The two most populous countries of the American continent had in common governments of nationalist populist leaders – Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump – both of whom actively downplayed the threat of Covid-19, ridiculed the wearing of masks, opposed confinements and closures, and promoted fake treatments such as chloroquine, but were nevertheless infected by the virus.

China – where the virus emerged in late 2019 – is not included in the list due to lack of publicly available diagnostic data, according to the authors.

The study’s authors claim that Beijing aggressively attempted to manipulate public perception of its handling of the epidemic to prove that its authoritarian regime is better than democratic governments, many of which failed in the crisis.

The Lowy Institute states that there is no clear winner when it comes to knowing which political system best managed the pandemic, because, in virtually all the countries analyzed, response was mediocre. “Some countries managed the pandemic better than others, but most of them stood out only for their unsatisfactory performance,” notes the study.

Small countries, with populations below ten million, proved to have some advantages. “In general, countries with smaller populations, more cohesive societies, and well-trained institutions have a comparative advantage when it comes to dealing with global crises like the pandemic,” the study says.

Over 100 million people have been infected with the virus and 2.2 million have died since December 2019.