The main priority of many countries just a few months ago was to control the number of cases of the coronavirus and guarantee a sound healthcare system to attend to these, but now, in the midst of the largest vaccination campaign in the history of mankind, the focus is on getting ready for the ‘reopening’ of the world. The end of the obligation to wear face masks, the relaxing of mobility restrictions and even the suspension of strict border controls are some of the developments that lead us to trust that the much sought-after return to normality is now closer than ever.
And in this global context of a return to normality, Spain is one of the best prepared countries. Specifically, it is in sixth position on the latest Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking which offers a monthly ranking of the quality of life and status of the pandemic in 53 countries. Spain’s position in June is up 11 positions on May’s ranking, which is turn was a rise of seven positions on the previous month.
Accordingly, with a score of 72 out of 100, Spain only stands behind the United States (76), New Zealand (73.7), Switzerland (72.9), Israel (72.9) and France (72.8), while countries whose handling of the pandemic had often been used as a model, such as Australia (70.1), China (69.9) and South Korea (68.6), were all ranked below our country.
Vaccinations and border openings have changed the ranking
The University of Valencia is vaccinating more than 2,000 Erasmus students.. EFE/ Ana Escobar
In this month’s edition of the ranking, focused on the best and worst countries to be when the world ‘re-opens’, Bloomberg has incorporated a new parameter: progress on ‘re-opening’, which includes – as well as vaccination coverage and restriction levels, which were measured before – the freedom of international mobility for people vaccinated (vaccinated travel routes) and the degree of recovery of air transport (flight capacity).
By placing the focus on recovering normality, “radical” changes have taken place in the ranking: while before the podium was occupied by New Zealand, Singapore and Australia, the United States took over the top spot in June, while such European countries as France, Switzerland and Spain have broken into the top 10 “by opening their borders to vaccinated tourists while the number of people admitted to hospital has fallen thanks to the vaccination process”.
As pointed out by Bloomberg, “although the failure of powerful and developed authorities in halting the spread of the coronavirus remains a tough legacy of the pandemic and has left deep scars – the United States, the United Kingdom and some parts of Europe have some of the highest per capita mortality rates in the world – these places have proven to have responded more quickly and better in exiting the Covid era, above all thanks to their control over the supply of the vaccines”.
For their part, territories in the Asia-Pacific Region which, until now, had scored highly in the ranking – including Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong – have dropped places “since they have maintained strict border controls and because their zero tolerance approach to small outbreaks of the virus has limited their ability to re-open”. Although in these countries “domestic life has returned to normal to a large degree, they remain closed to the outside world”, pointed out the financial publication.
Second place in establishing vaccinated travel routes
Passengers arriving at Palma airport. EFE/Atienza
Among the different areas analysed by Bloomberg, Spain stands out in the establishment of vaccinated travel routes, a category in which it was ranked in 2nd place; and in the vaccinated population, where it was ranked in 12th place, with 41.7% of the population covered (in June). As regards the severity of restrictions, it falls to 32nd place in the ranking, thanks to the re-opening process Spain has been heavily involved in since May.
The coronavirus figures of the population have also improved: in June, Spain was ranked in 16th place in the accumulated monthly rate per 100,000 inhabitants (255), in 15th place out of 53 countries with the lowest mortality rate per 100,000 inhabitants (0.7%) and in 40th place in deaths per million inhabitants (1,728).
As regards the categories related to the quality of life, Spain is ranked 9th in terms of the best universal health coverage, similar to Canada and ahead of Australia, and in 12th place in terms of the best GDP growth forecast, which stood at 5.9% in June.
A global problem that requires global support
Despite the optimism stemming from the positive figures for Spain in the Covid Resilience Ranking, this table also states that we continue to have a “two-speed pandemic”, caused by the different levels of vaccine availability. As pointed out by Bloomberg, while some parts of the developed world have enough vaccines for their entire population, other parts of the world, like Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia still have scant supplies.
To combat this, COVAX is the multilateral initiative backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to help more vulnerable countries in acquiring doses. Spain, as well as co-leading the project, will contribute a total of 22.5 million vaccines at the end of 2021: the 7.5 million doses for Latin America announced in April and another 15 million doses announced a month ago. Spain will also contribute another 50 million euros to COVAX through the Global Vaccine Alliance and will collaborate with the WHO through the C-TAP initiative to grant an open licence for a blood test to detect COVID-19 developed in Spain by researchers from the CSIC. The technology, which is capable of differentiating, with a level of reliability of 99%, the antibodies produced by the vaccination, of those produced by the COVID-19 infection, could prove to be a useful diagnostic tool for countries with fewer resources.