Pakistan among the least safe country for coronavirus: Report

With the number of coronavirus cases rising by thousands a day, Pakistan has been placed among the least safe countries in the world against COVID-19.

As per a study titled COVID-19 Regional Safety Assessment Report conducted by Deep Knowledge Group, Pakistan was ranked 148th country among 200 countries and regions in the world, when it comes to safety against coronavirus.

As per the study, Pakistan managed to score only 370 points faring poorly even against countries such as Bhutan and Nepal, which were ranked at 140 and 142, respectively, with scores of 392 and 390, respectively.

Pakistan also performed poorly in the Asia and Pacific region as well, with only three countries including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Afghanistan performing below Pakistan. Next door neighbor India was way ahead of Pakistan and was placed at 56thspot with a score of 532 points.

Meanwhile, Switzerland, Germany, Israel, Singapore and Japan were placed as the top-5 safest regions in the world against COVID-19.

“Overall, the analysis revealed a significant degree of variance in terms of the regional safety ranking of the 200 regions and countries analyzed, and identified a large number of territories (many of them technological and economic superpowers) that scored substantially lower than expected by any basic logic, and despite their overall level of healthcare sophistication and government management efficiency, suffering some of the highest infection spread and mortality rates (e.g. the USA, UK and France), which is a surprising result that requires further analysis and assessment of the specific causes of these anomalies,” stated the study. “This finding strongly suggests that one of the most critical factors impacting regional safety is not just the general level of different territories’ theoretical capacity to withstand and neutralize national emergency situations, but rather the specific policies and crisis management strategies and tactics they employ in practice,” it added.

The study was of the view that regions which began closing borders, lockdown mandates and economic freezing measures comparatively late in the overall pandemic timeline, which continue to prioritize economic recovery over public health and safety, which do not utilize sufficiently widespread testing, and which do not proactively build bridges across government departments and between the private and public sectors in order to strengthen surplus healthcare resources against the threat of current and future outbreaks consistently score lower than one would expect.