A new study has determined that Germany’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has been unexceptional when compared with 98 other countries. The study found that Germany’s response only ranked 55th out of the countries included in the study.

Deconstructing pandemic responses

The Lowy Institute has released its COVID Performance Index, the results of a study aimed at discerning countries’ performances in tackling the coronavirus pandemic throughout 2020. The study included 98 countries, that were sorted into four categories: regions, political systems, population size and economic development, to determine if there were any variations between the different types of states’ responses.

The study measured how well countries responded to the pandemic by collecting available data for six different indicators: confirmed cases, confirmed deaths, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths per million people, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests and tests per 1.000 people. An average was then calculated for each country and then standardised to produce a score between zero and 100, with 100 being the best possible response.

Results of the study

The study found that Germany’s response to coronavirus ranked only 55th out of the 98 countries, with a score of 45,8. This rather unexceptional performance sees Germany place below Ireland (51,3) Sweden (55,5) and Norway (70) but above the UK (37,5), France (34,9) and the Netherlands (33,5).

The study also found that countries with smaller populations, countries with democratic governments and countries situated in the Asia Pacific region performed best when it came to combating the spread of the virus. European countries and other more economically developed countries found themselves overwhelmed when the virus originally broke, mainly due to a greater flow of people passing through these countries, however, they have also experienced the greatest improvement to their pandemic responses.

Top 10 pandemic responses

The top ten countries with the best coronavirus responses are:

• 1. New Zealand
• 2. Vietnam
• 3. Taiwan
• 4. Thailand
• 5. Cyprus
• 6. Rwanda
• 7. Iceland
• 8. Australia
• 9. Latvia
• 10. Sri Lanka
• (55.) Germany

For more information regarding the performance of countries by category and the study’s methodology, you can visit the Lowy Institute's website.