ZIMBABWE stands at number 38 globally in Covid-19 management

AUSTRALIA’S think-tank, Lowy Institute has ranked Zimbabwe 38th out of 98 countries globally and 7th in the continent in the management of coronavirus.

According to data released by the Ministry of Health and Child Care this Monday, Zimbabwe recorded 160 new cases and 17 deaths. As of 1 February 2021, the country has recorded 33548 cases of coronavirus with 26583 recoveries and 1234 deaths.

In research released recently, New Zealand has been ranked top followed by Vietnam while Rwanda is ranked 6th.

Zimbabwe is ranked 38th which cements the view that government’s lockdown measures have been effective towards controlling the spread of the pandemic.

South Africa which received the first batch of vaccines this Monday has been ranked 82 while the Democratic Republic of Congo has been ranked 39th, Madagascar has been placed at number 40 while Mozambique is placed at 26 with Malawi taking the 27th position.

“Coronavirus continues to spread worldwide with more than 90 million confirmed cases across 190 countries and two million deaths as of mid-January 2021. For nearly a year, governments and societies have been turned inwards to fight an invisible enemy, exposing competing structures, vulnerabilities, and political priorities.

“The pandemic has also given rise to an ‘infodemic’ of narratives and counter-narratives about what kinds of states are inherently better suited to combat the virus.

“This Interactive explores how almost 100 countries with publicly available and comparable data on the virus have managed the pandemic to date following their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19. Countries have been sorted into broad categories — by regions, political systems, population size, and economic development — to determine whether significant variations exist between different types of states in the handling of the pandemic,” reads part of the research.

The research also notes that some countries have managed the pandemic better than others – but most countries outcompeted each other only by degrees of underperformance.

The severity of the pandemic in many countries has also changed significantly over time, with infections surging again in many places that had apparent success in suppressing initial outbreaks.

“The period examined spans the 36 weeks that followed every country’s hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19, using data available to 9 January 2021. Fourteen-day rolling averages of new daily figures were calculated for the following indicators: Confirmed cases, Confirmed deaths, Confirmed cases per million people, Confirmed deaths per million people, Confirmed cases as a proportion of tests, Tests per thousand people.

“An average across those indicators was then calculated for individual countries in each period and normalised to produce a score from 0 (worst performing) to 100 (best performing). Collectively, these indicators point to how well or poorly countries have managed the pandemic in the 36 weeks that followed their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19,” reads part of the research.

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Tatenda Mutumhe

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