A short study comparing countries on the quality of response to the Covid-19 pandemic

TL;DR

This study assesses and ranks countries based on their Covid-19 response quality during the first 18 months, using a robust method that considers deaths, testing, cases, and vaccinations, revealing many countries' outcomes were not significantly better than baseline expectations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, robust method for evaluating Covid-19 response quality across countries, accounting for data uncertainties and demographic factors.

Findings

Many countries' outcomes are not significantly better than baseline.

The ranking method is robust to data uncertainties.

Adjustments for purchasing power and age distribution can refine rankings.

Abstract

Background: We estimate the overall quality of response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the first 18 months, using a small number of known parameters and a proposed method that is reasonably robust to the uncertainties in the data. Methods: The population-normalized values of deaths, diagnostic tests, confirmed cases, and doses of vaccines administered were considered. The average infection-fatality-rate provides us a baseline on potential deaths, and along with the test positivity rates in the formula, they add robustness to the estimates of the quality of response. Results: The scores are used to rank countries in two lists representing 84 large countries with a population greater than 10 million, and 85 countries with smaller populations. Additional possible corrections in the rankings of countries to include the per capita purchasing power and the age distribution, are also shown. In a supplementary note, an analysis of the robustness of the overall ranking list to the expected uncertainties in the data, and the maximum possible changes in the ranking of any country are presented. Conclusion: In many countries, the outcomes are not significantly better than the baseline. A few significant inferences are pondered that may help unravel the causes of the poor outcomes.