Poor planning lands SA’s Covid-19 response in bottom 20 out of 100 countries

South Africa is ranked in the bottom 20 out of nearly 100 countries in the Covid-19 performance index.

The assessment, released by Australian think-tank the Lowy Institute, examines the 36-week period after the country’s 100th confirmed Covid-19 case, using indicators such as confirmed cases, confirmed deaths and testing to produce a score from 0 – (worst) and 100 – (best performing).

South Africa was one of the poor performing countries, ranking 82 out of the 98 countries.

The United States ranked 94 with Brazil scoring the lowest. Countries that came out top were New Zealand, Vietnam and Taiwan.

The index found that developing countries were able to cope with the initial outbreak of the pandemic which gave them a head start to put preventative measures in place.

“Richer countries were quickly overwhelmed when the virus first emerged.

“International air travel accelerated virus transmission from abroad in these countries.

“By contrast, many governments in developing countries had more lead – and often a greater sense of urgency – to put in place preventative measures after the scale and severity of the global crisis became known,” said the institute.

But countries that were ranked low were not well coordinated in approaching the pandemic, Stellenbosch University epidemiologist Dr Jo Barnes said.

“The US is a good example that not only is it about access to resources, but it is a healthy, well-functioning state of the governmental structure and political system.

“The US is at the bottom of the table and SA is so low down because our government’s approach is not well coordinated and not well planned.”

Barnes believed South Africa’s response to the pandemic of imposing several bans was instead policing the outbreak instead of managing it.

“There is a difference between managing the situation by teaching people to do the right thing, instead of banning stuff. Poor management comes from disorganised government,” Barnes said.

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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