Amidst the rise in Covid-19 infections in the country, Singapore has now dropped from first place in Bloomberg’s ‘Covid-19 Resilience’ ranking to 39th place, which just goes to show that the pandemic still poses a threat even after 2 years and that we must never be complacent in dealing with the virus.
Our neighbour Singapore is one of the success stories of the pandemic with many countries around the globe praising and taking inspiration from how the Republic handled the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, Singapore was ranked 1st in Bloomberg’s ‘Covid-19 Resilience’ back in April 2021, a ranking system updated every month which uses a range of social measures to determine the best place to be in the world as ‘Covid reopening’ gathers pace.
Amongst the parameters Bloomberg considers in order to determine the global ranking include:
- Covid-19 mortality rates
- Vaccination rates
- Lockdown severity
- Community mobility
- Number of cases in a month
- Travel routes and flight capacity
However, 6 months after topping the ranking, Singapore has since fallen down the ranking to now be placed in 39th place this month and the first time the Republic has dropped below 19th place in the ‘Covid-19 Resilience’ ranking. In comparison, Malaysia still sits below Singapore in Bloomberg’s rankings at 50th place, up one place from what we were in September 2021.
Furthermore, despite going down 38 places, Singapore is still the highest ranked nation in Southeast Asia in the least with Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines all being in the bottom 6 for the third month. However, the downward spiral of Singapore’s Covid-19 situation has got a lot of its citizens restless with many plans by the Singaporean government to reopen being put at a halt. In fact, the country’s recent daily Covid-19 cases have seen a sudden increase with it being one of the highest in the region in terms of cases per million people. Just recently on 27 October 2021, Singapore saw a record 5,324 new daily cases.
According to Bloomberg, Singapore fared poorly on many of its parameters gauging a country’s Covid-19 resilience including domestic curbs limiting mobility, a slow travel reopening and a flight capacity that lags behind other countries in the world. Furthermore, Bloomberg also said that Singapore’s current situation is the ‘worst of both worlds’ as its government is in between implementing a ‘zero Covid’ or ‘living with Covid’ policy. The nation is now following an ‘unprecedented’ path in attempting to have Covid-19 treated as endemic, similar to the approach taken by the Malaysian government.
Let’s hope that the Covid-19 situation in Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia gets better and that we can safely and freely travel in between ASEAN countries soon!
Also read: Watch: Ukraine Cracks Down On Fake Vaccination Certificates As Covid-19 Deaths Surge In The Country
