Best and worst countries on COVID-19 response

[jaichind]

U.S. Jobless Rate Unexpectedly Fell in May as Hiring Rebounded

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-jobless-rate-unexpectedly-fell-123601431.html

The V-shaped recovery is coming.  I suspect USA is not the only Western country that will see something like this.

[CumbrianLefty]

Maybe more like W-shaped, given the likelihood of a second wave in the US?

[jaichind]

End of June GDP projection for 2020 (and 2021) chart based on average of various financial houses and compare them to 2020 GDP projections from Feb 2020.

               June 2020          Feb 2020          June 2021
World            -3.7%              3.1%                5.0%
USA              -5.3%               1.8%               4.2%
Eurozone       -8.3%               1.0%               5.9%
PRC               1.5%               5.5%***          7.9%
Japan           -4.9%               0.5%                2.5%
UK               -8.5%               1.0%                5.9%
India            -3.7%**           5.7%**            7.4%
Brazil            -6.0%              2.2%                3.1%
Canada         -6.9%               1.5%               4.6%
ROK             -0.5%               2.2%               3.2%
Russia          -4.6%               1.8%               3.2%
Australia       -3.7%               2.1%               3.5%
Mexico          -7.9%               0.9%               2.8%
Indonesia       0.9%               5.0%               5.6%
Turkey          -3.8%               2.8%               4.6%
Saudi Arabia -4.1%                2.3%              3.2%
Switzerland   -5.5%               1.2%               4.3%
ROC               0.4%               2.3%              3.2%
Argentina      -8.1%              -1.6%              3.6%
Sweden         -4.5%               1.1%              3.8%
Poland          -4.0%                3.3%              4.2%
Thailand        -5.9%               2.0%              4.3%
Norway         -4.7%               1.8%              3.9%
Philippines     -3.5%               6.2%              7.5%
Nigeria          -2.4%*             2.3%              2.0%
Vietnam         2.3%                6.7%              8.1%
Israel            -4.2%               3.0%              4.1%
South Africa   -7.3%               0.8%              2.8%
Malaysia        -3.9%               4.0%              5.8%
Columbia       -4.1%               3.2%              3.7%
Romania        -5.4%               3.2%              4.4%
Hungary        -4.8%               3.3%              4.3%
Ukraine         -5.7%               3.2%              4.2%
Czechia          -6.9%              2.1%              4.7%
New Zealand  -5.0%               2.4%             5.3%
Finland          -5.9%               1.1%              3.7%
Singapore      -5.6%               1.5%              5.1%
HK                -5.7%               0.1%              4.3%

* Data is thin
** India fiscal year is April to March so I and normalize the data using quarterly GDP protections to make it apples to apples
*** For PRC I used Jan 2020 GDP estimates for 2020 since by Feb is was clear that the virus would have huge economic impact.

Situation looks much gloomier for non-Scandinavian Europe, South American and Southeast Asia.  USA, East Asia and Scandinavia looks better than in May 2020.  India impact is getting worse and worse. The entire India lock down strategy did not seem to have stopped the virus AND had a huge economic impact.

In terms of economic impact clearly the star students are ROC and ROK.  Vietnam, PRC and Sweden also will fare relatively well.  USA and Australia will outperform all other advanced economies in terms of minimizing economic impact.  PRC and Vietnam will be the only economies to have any real growth in 2020 and both will have a massive surge in 2021.

[jaichind]

End of July GDP projection for 2020 (and 2021) chart based on average of various financial houses and compare them to 2020 GDP projections from Feb 2020.  I also added 2021 GDP projections from Feb 2020 (Jan 2020 for PRC).

               July 2020          Feb 2020          July 2021        Feb 2021
World            -3.6%              3.1%                5.0%               3.3%
USA              -5.2%               1.8%               3.9%               1.9%
Eurozone       -8.1%               1.0%               5.7%               1.3%
PRC               2.0%               5.5%***          7.8%               5.8%***
Japan           -5.0%               0.5%                2.5%               0.8%
UK               -9.3%               1.0%                6.1%               1.5%
India            -5.2%**           5.7%**            7.7%**            6.5%**
Brazil            -6.1%              2.2%                3.3%               2.5%
Canada         -6.7%               1.5%               4.7%               1.8%
ROK             -0.7%               2.2%               3.3%                2.3%
Russia          -4.6%               1.8%               3.2%                1.9%
Australia       -3.8%               2.1%               3.4%                2.6%
Mexico          -9.0%               0.9%               3.1%               1.8%
Indonesia      -1.1%               5.0%               5.4%               5.2%
Turkey          -3.8%               2.8%               4.6%                3.1%
Saudi Arabia  -5.2%               2.3%              3.5%                2.2%
Switzerland   -6.0%               1.2%               4.6%                1.3%
ROC               0.6%               2.3%              3.1%                 2.4%
Argentina     -10.1%             -1.6%              4.2%                1.5%
Sweden         -4.5%               1.1%              3.7%                1.5%
Poland          -3.9%                3.3%              4.2%                3.2%
Thailand        -6.6%               2.0%              4.4%                3.3%
Norway         -4.7%               1.8%              3.8%                1.5%
Philippines     -4.1%               6.2%              7.8%                6.3%
Nigeria          -2.8%*             2.3%              2.5%*               2.5%
Vietnam         2.5%                6.7%              8.0%                6.7%
Israel            -5.1%               3.0%              4.6%                3.2%
South Africa   -7.7%               0.8%              3.1%                1.4%
Malaysia        -3.8%               4.0%              5.8%                4.5%
Columbia       -5.3%               3.2%              4.0%                3.2%
Romania        -5.3%               3.2%              4.5%                2.8%
Hungary        -5.0%               3.3%              4.5%                2.9%
Ukraine         -5.8%               3.2%              4.3%                3.6%
Czechia          -7.0%              2.1%              4.9%                2.4%
New Zealand  -5.5%               2.4%             5.3%                2.6%
Finland          -5.7%               1.1%              3.9%               1.1%
Singapore      -5.7%               1.5%              5.1%                2.0%
HK                -6.4%               0.1%              4.0%                2.0%

* Data is thin
** India fiscal year is April to March so I and normalize the data using quarterly GDP protections to make it apples to apples
*** For PRC I used Jan 2020 GDP estimates for 2020 and 2021 since by Feb is was clear that the virus would have huge economic impact.

Several emerging economies like India, Mexico, Indonesia, Argentina, Thailand, Philippines, South Africa, Columbia saw large downgrades in 2020 GDP growth but stronger rebounds in 2021 GDP growth as a part of the recovery.

The point of including Feb(Jan) 2020 GDP projection for 2021 is for me to compute the net GDP loss for the 2020-2021 period for each economy between current projections and what the Feb(Jan) 2020 projections looked like for 2020 and 2021.  Doing so and ranking them you get:

ROC                    -1.0%
ROK                    -2.0%
PRC                     -2.1%
Vietnam               -3.1%
Sweden               -3.6%
Japan                  -3.9%
Switzerland          -4.2%
Finland                -4.2%
Norway                -4.4%
Singapore            -4.4%
HK                      -4.8%
Eurozone             -5.2%
Nigeria                -5.2%* (data is thin)
USA                    -5.2%
Russia                 -5.3%
World                  -5.3%
Australia             -5.3%
Turkey                -5.4%
New Zealand       -5.6%
Canada               -5.6%
Argentina            -6.2%
Indonesia            -6.2%
UK                     -6.3%
Saudi Arabia       -6.4%
Poland                -6.5%
Malaysia             -6.9%
Czechia              -7.0%
Hungary             -7.0%
Israel                 -7.0%
South Africa       -7.0%
Romania            -7.1%
Brazil                 -7.8%
Thailand            -7.9%
Columbia           -8.0%
Ukraine              -8.7%
Mexico               -8.9%
Philippines         -9.5%
India                -10.5%

So this way we can rank each economies' effectiveness in minimizing economic impact of the virus.  The result seems.  The Oriental economies are at the top followed by Scandinavian economies.  Non-Scandinavian Advanced economies comes next with UK being the worst of the advanced economies.  Although if I breakout the Eurozone economies I am sure the Southern Europe economies will be just as bad as UK and the Northern Europe economies closer to Scandinavian economies.   Then comes the emerging economies with Eastern Europe emerging economies doing somewhat better than the rest (South Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America.)

It seems that India's poor record here has it getting the worst of both worlds.  They tried an Oriental  economies approach of a lockdown but was not organizationally able to do it effectively. So they got the economic hit without curbing the virus and are not getting the V-shaped recovery that the Oriental economies are now getting.  

Sweden's strategy of herd immunity has shown itself to be effective and even though they fall short of the Oriental  economies in terms of minimizing impact I think overall their strategy is superior to the Oriental economies as they are now better suited to deal with the risk a a second wave.

[Continential]

A problem with India is that there is a lot of people, who live in a condensed living space.

[jaichind]

A problem with India is that there is a lot of people, who live in a condensed living space.

All the more reason not to try a lockdown strategy that the Oriental economies tried when they do not have same organisational and big data infrastructure the Oriental economies had.  India as much better of with the Sweden herd immunity approach.  The lockdown was a clear economic policy fiasco.  Just to be clear, like demonetization of 2016, a policy failure does not mean political failure as Modi is more popular than ever and most of the anger seems to be directed toward state governments.  Modi understood is that what the electorate wanted to see is collective action where everyone gets to participate solving a problem even if in the end the problem is not solved.  Being a part of that ritual consolidates support for the regime just like the demonetization of 2016 which was clearly an economic policy failure.

[parochial boy]

re-economic performance, the US has the advantage of a huge internal market, whereas Europe has very export driven economies like Germany as well as ones that were already very fragile going into the crisis like Italy or Spain... coupled with the Austro-Dutch fear of spending money winding up as a self inflicted wound.

I mean, the bailout even in a notoriously frugal country like Switzerland has still been twice as high relative to the size of its economy as what most Eurozone countries have managed. Which kind of shows how much the EU's response has been lacking up to now.

[jaichind]

End of financial house weighted average Aug GDP chart with a bunch of Eurozone countries individually listed along with some more emerging economies.

                            Aug 20   Feb 20   Aug 21   Feb 21
World                   -3.7%     3.1%     4.9%     3.3%
USA                     -5.0%     1.8%     3.8%     1.9%
Eurozone              -7.9%     1.0%     5.6%     1.3%
PRC                       2.1%     5.9%#   7.8%     5.8%#
Japan                   -5.3%     0.5%     2.5%     0.8%
Germany              -6.0%     0.7%     4.8%     1.2%
India                    -5.9%**  5.7%** 8.2%** 6.5%**
UK                        -9.8%     1.0%     6.3%     1.5%
France                  -9.8%     1.2%     7.0%     1.3%
Italy                   -10.1%     0.4%     6.0%     0.6%
Brazil                    -5.6%     2.2%     3.5%     2.5%
Canada                 -6.6%     1.5%     4.8%     1.8%
Russia                  -4.6%     1.8%     3.2%     1.9%
ROK                     -0.9%     2.2%     3.3%     2.3%
Spain                  -11.6%     1.6%     6.9%     1.6%
Australia              -4.1%     2.1%     3.2%     2.6%
Mexico                 -9.8%     0.9%     3.3%     1.8%
Indonesia             -1.3%     5.0%     5.3%     5.2%
Netherlands         -5.3%     1.5%     3.7%     1.5%
Saudi Arabia        -5.2%*   2.3%     3.4%*   2.2%
Turkey                 -4.0%     2.8%     4.7%     3.1%
Switzerland          -5.8%     1.2%     4.4%     1.3%
ROC                     0.6%     2.3%     3.1%     2.4%
Poland                 -3.8%     3.3%     4.1%     3.2%
Thailand              -7.3%     2.0%     4.4%     3.3%
Sweden               -4.4%     1.1%     3.8%     1.5%
Belgium               -7.8%     1.0%     4.9%     1.1%
Austria                -6.5%     1.1%     4.3%     1.5%
Nigeria                -3.1%     2.3%     2.3%     2.5%
Argentina          -10.5%    -1.6%     4.3%     1.5%
Norway               -4.6%     1.8%     3.7%     1.5%
Israel                  -5.1%     3.0%     4.7%     3.2%
Ireland                -6.1%     2.9%     5.1%     2.8%
HK                      -6.8%     0.1%     4.1%     2.0%
Malaysia              -4.9%     4.0%     6.0%     4.5%
Singapore            -6.4%     1.5%     5.2%     2.0%
South Africa         -7.9%     0.8%     3.3%     1.4%
Philippines           -7.0%     6.2%     7.4%     6.3%
Columbia             -6.1%     3.2%     4.4%     3.2%
Chile                   -5.9%     1.4%     4.5%     2.5%
Vietnam               2.4%*   6.7%     8.0%*   6.7%
Finland               -5.6%*    1.1%     3.9%*   1.1%
Czechia               -6.6%     2.1%     4.9%     2.4%
Romania             -5.2%     3.2%     4.5%     2.8%
Portugal              -8.7%     1.5%     5.3%     1.5%
Peru                 -11.1%     3.0%     7.8%     3.4%
Greece               -8.0%     2.0%     3.8%     1.9%
New Zealand       -5.7%     2.4%     5.3%     2.6%
Hungary             -5.1%     3.3%     4.6%     2.9%
Ukraine              -6.0%*   3.2%     4.4%*   3.6%

* Data is thin
** India fiscal year is April to March so I and normalize the data using quarterly GDP protections to make it apples to apples
# For PRC I used Jan 2020 GDP estimates for 2020 and 2021 since by Feb is was clear that the virus would have huge economic impact.

Things getting worse in non-Oriental emerging economies while advanced economies mostly the same as end of July.  India's 2020 Q2 GDP numbers came in at -23.9 YoY would means the current average of  -5.9% in 2020 will most likely end up -9% or something like that.  

The only economies that will see any real growth this year will be PRC and Vietnam.  In 2020 absolute terms Spain, Peru, Argentina, and Italy will see the worst GDP drop although I suspect they might be joined by India once the India Q2 numbers are taken into account.  

If you then compute net GDP loss for the 2020-2021 period for each economy between current projections and what the Feb(Jan) 2020 projections looked like for 2020 and 2021.  Doing so and ranking them you get:


ROC               -1.0%
PRC               -2.0%
ROK               -2.2%
Vietnam          -3.3%
Sweden          -3.4%
Germany        -3.4%
Finland           -4.1%
Switzerland     -4.2%
Japan             -4.2%
Norway           -4.4%
Netherlands    -4.8%
Eurozone        -5.1%
Singapore       -5.1%
HK                 -5.1%
Austria           -5.1%
USA               -5.1%
Russia            -5.3%
Belgium          -5.4%
Canada          -5.4%
Turkey           -5.5%
World            -5.5%
Chile             -5.6%
Italy              -5.7%
Nigeria           -5.7%
New Zealand  -5.8%
Australia        -5.8%
France           -6.0%
Poland           -6.5%
Saudi Arabia  -6.5%
Argentina       -6.5%
Indonesia       -6.5%
Czechia          -6.6%
UK                 -6.6%
Portugal         -6.9%
Israel             -6.9%
Romania        -7.0%
Hungary         -7.0%
Brazil             -7.1%
South Africa   -7.1%
Ireland          -7.2%
Malaysia        -7.9%
Greece          -8.4%
Columbia       -8.5%
Thailand        -8.6%
Spain            -8.7%
Ukraine         -8.8%
Mexico          -9.5%
Peru            -10.7%
India           -10.8%
Philippines   -13.0%

The pattern is fairly clear.  Doing the best in term of minimizing impact  at Oriental economies.  After that are the Nordic-Germanic economies.  After that are the non-Nordic-Germanic advanced economies with USA clearly doing the best of all to Anglo bloc with UK doing the worst.  After that are the PIGS European economies with Spain and good old Greece doing very badly.  And there is a whole range of emerging economies with India and Philippines doing the worst.  As pointed out before India's 2020 GDP will most likely be something like -9% given the data it come out with yesterday which has not been taken into account in the financial firm projections so India will most likely bring up the rear.

It is interesting but not unexpected that places like Thailand and Greece got hit hard mostly due to the collapse of tourism which shows the extent these two economies are dependent on tourism.  HK and Singapore as entrepôt economies are also clearly doing worse that other Oriental economies.

[jaichind]

For me the best response is Sweden.  Even though they lag behind some Oriental economies in terms of minimizing economic impact they are now fairly invulnerable to any renewed outbreak where as the various Oriental economies mostly artificially suppressed the spread of the virus which merely delays the inevitable and is based on the premise that an effective vaccine can be quickly manufactured and dispersed.   

USA and Russia also did fairly well by only doing worse than the Oriental and Nordic-Germanic economies in term of mitigating impact.  In my view India was the worst mostly due to their draconian and ineffective (worst of both worlds) that destroyed the economy without really stopping the virus.  Philippines did something similar and was almost as bad.  Fortunately both are beginning to adopt a de facto herd immunity with some localized lockdowns that does not last long here or there. Hopefully this will lead to a V shaped recovery later this year and in 2021 in both economies as the economic cost of these lockdown were massive and completely out of proportion with benefits, if any, that came as a result of these ill advised lockdowns.

[CumbrianLefty]

For me the best response is Sweden.  Even though they lag behind some Oriental economies in terms of minimizing economic impact they are now fairly invulnerable to any renewed outbreak where as the various Oriental economies mostly artificially suppressed the spread of the virus which merely delays the inevitable and is based on the premise that an effective vaccine can be quickly manufactured and dispersed.   

Which may yet happen, in which case they (and the likes of NZ) will look rather better.

[jaymichaud]

Brazil and the USA are painful to watch.

[Pericles]

For me the best response is Sweden.  Even though they lag behind some Oriental economies in terms of minimizing economic impact they are now fairly invulnerable to any renewed outbreak where as the various Oriental economies mostly artificially suppressed the spread of the virus which merely delays the inevitable and is based on the premise that an effective vaccine can be quickly manufactured and dispersed.   

Which may yet happen, in which case they (and the likes of NZ) will look rather better.

Yes, the NZ elimination approach is the most sensible. The lack of certainty makes a cautious approach wise, while getting the health response right is also good economically. We have had far fewer social distancing restrictions than most countries, we had a long period of no domestic restrictions at all (and so the economy held up better than expected). There is a good chance we get back to that soon because we got the new outbreak under control early. That is better than herd immunity or a generally lax approach to public health, which is worse for the economy because people voluntarily social distance and there probably have to be some government restrictions, but also causes worse economic outcomes. And even where elimination is impossible, suppressing the virus ultimately reduces social distancing and is better for the economy while of course having the big benefit of avoiding tragically high amounts of excess deaths.

[palandio]

[...]
Yes, the NZ elimination approach is the most sensible. The lack of certainty makes a cautious approach wise, while getting the health response right is also good economically. We have had far fewer social distancing restrictions than most countries, we had a long period of no domestic restrictions at all (and so the economy held up better than expected). There is a good chance we get back to that soon because we got the new outbreak under control early. That is better than herd immunity or a generally lax approach to public health, which is worse for the economy because people voluntarily social distance and there probably have to be some government restrictions, but also causes worse economic outcomes. And even where elimination is impossible, suppressing the virus ultimately reduces social distancing and is better for the economy while of course having the big benefit of avoiding tragically high amounts of excess deaths.

Being a devoloped country of 4 million people situated on two islands in the South Pacific is of course among the best preconditions that could be there. In other parts of the world where the preconditions are far less favorable similar approaches have failed miserably. And even in NZ the virus has returned after all, while a lockdown that aimed at complete elimination caused more economic damage than a slightly more moderate suppression strategy would have done.

There really is no "one size fits all".

In China the severe regional lockdown was probably right. First of all because at an early stage it was worth to try to kill the virus completely while now after it has spread all over the world this is much more difficult. And secondly because China as a totalitarian semi-developed country has the means that other countries don't have.

In Italy the lockdown was absolutely necessary given the health emergency, although some measures were probably over the top and caused a lot of collateral damage while having negligible effect on the spread of the virus. It seems that Italy is getting the second outbreak under control and hence the lockdown hasn't been in vain.

Spain is similar, but the time buyed by the lockdown hasn't been used sufficiently to create the environment that stops the second outbreak without a lockdown. The only positive is that for reasons that will have to be discussed the virus seems to have become less severe. Hence the people getting infected now is not as bad as them getting infected in March.

In places like India the lockdown hasn't even achieved its goals temporarily.

[SnowLabrador]

Best: New Zealand. Jacinda Ardern is the only world leader with a spine out of roughly 200. If we all locked down for 2-3 months, a total lockdown, then we'd be done with this by Christmas.

Worst: America. Is this even a question? I guarantee, this will be the last country where COVID is still a problem. Already, Canada and Mexico have closed their borders to us so that we don't infect them. I don't blame them; we will never get this under control.

[Pericles]

Best: New Zealand. Jacinda Ardern is the only world leader with a spine out of roughly 200. If we all locked down for 2-3 months, a total lockdown, then we'd be done with this by Christmas.

Worst: America. Is this even a question? I guarantee, this will be the last country where COVID is still a problem. Already, Canada and Mexico have closed their borders to us so that we don't infect them. I don't blame them; we will never get this under control.

Spain seems pretty similar to America. They had a really bad first wave, one of the worst per capita in the world and worse than the US. And then they reopened too much too quickly, so now they are having a big second wave with similar case numbers per capita to the US. Their death reporting system seems screwed up so the situation is less clear than in the US. It's also possible that the rest of Europe will experience a second wave.

[palandio]

[...]
Spain seems pretty similar to America. They had a really bad first wave, one of the worst per capita in the world and worse than the US. And then they reopened too much too quickly, so now they are having a big second wave with similar case numbers per capita to the US. Their death reporting system seems screwed up so the situation is less clear than in the US. It's also possible that the rest of Europe will experience a second wave.

Quite to the contrary I think that Spain's lockdown was too late, too strict and too long while not building up enough capacities for contact tracing and isolating. At some point Spain had to reopen because the inflicted economic and societal damage had already become so severe. Numbers then remained about constant for some weeks and started to spike again when the first challenge came (holiday season). It is true that when the virus was new almost all countries (except ROC and to a lesser degree ROK and some others) lacked the appropriate means to fight it apart from lockdowns. But since then several months have passed and thinking only in terms of lockdowns and reopenings is a grave error.

Countries in general and European countries in particular cannot be viewed as isolated entities. If the virus is still in the world it will at some point try to come back. Then why engage in the futile attempt to eliminate it completely when the health effects of suppression are comparably good? And elimination in devoloping countries (outside maybe China and Vietnam) is completely illusionary for the time being and hence is worldwide elimination. This is not a sprint, it's a marathon and you don't even arrive at the finish line if you refuse to breathe.

[CumbrianLefty]

Worst: America. Is this even a question?

Yes, because Brazil exists.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Worst: America. Is this even a question?

Yes, because Brazil exists.

I am so tempted to make the joke "but Brazil is part of America".

[Pericles]

[...]
Spain seems pretty similar to America. They had a really bad first wave, one of the worst per capita in the world and worse than the US. And then they reopened too much too quickly, so now they are having a big second wave with similar case numbers per capita to the US. Their death reporting system seems screwed up so the situation is less clear than in the US. It's also possible that the rest of Europe will experience a second wave.

Quite to the contrary I think that Spain's lockdown was too late, too strict and too long while not building up enough capacities for contact tracing and isolating. At some point Spain had to reopen because the inflicted economic and societal damage had already become so severe. Numbers then remained about constant for some weeks and started to spike again when the first challenge came (holiday season). It is true that when the virus was new almost all countries (except ROC and to a lesser degree ROK and some others) lacked the appropriate means to fight it apart from lockdowns. But since then several months have passed and thinking only in terms of lockdowns and reopenings is a grave error.

Countries in general and European countries in particular cannot be viewed as isolated entities. If the virus is still in the world it will at some point try to come back. Then why engage in the futile attempt to eliminate it completely when the health effects of suppression are comparably good? And elimination in devoloping countries (outside maybe China and Vietnam) is completely illusionary for the time being and hence is worldwide elimination. This is not a sprint, it's a marathon and you don't even arrive at the finish line if you refuse to breathe.

Yeah I wasn't saying Spain's lockdown was too lax. Indeed, that makes their second wave worse-if they had to go as hard as they did they needed to make sure that effort was not wasted.

[Former President tack50]

Honestly this is a simpler answer than what people think. Just go to per capita stats and do a mixture of deaths/capita and cases/capita

Here is my very rough methodology. Take the world average of cases/Capita and deaths/capita. Then see what percentage above or below the world average each country is (for example if the world average is 100 deaths and a country has 200 deaths, that means it gets 200%). Then average the 2 numbers for the deaths and cases above the world average.

Doing this very rough methodology you get the following list of the top 20 worst responses (I'll exclude microstates and places which are not really countries or are unrecognized and put them in italics):

Andorra
Faroe Islands
San Marino
Monaco
1 Luxembourg
Gibraltar
2 Peru
3 USA
4 Spain
5 United Arab Emirates
6 Bahrain
Channel Islands
7 Italy
8 Chile
9 Iceland
10 Brazil
Falkland Islands
11 UK
12 Sweden
13 France
Cayman Islands
14 Panama
15 Ireland
16 Mexico
Sint Maarten
17 Bolivia
18 Colombia
19 Netherlands
20 Ecuador

On that note, here would be the top 20 best responses to COVID, which is an slightly more surprising set of countries:

3 way tie at 0: Vatican City, Seychelles, Eritrea

1 Tanzania
2 Timor-Leste
Western Sahara
3 Burundi
4 Papua New Guinea
5 Dominica
6 Burkina Faso
7 Democratic Republic of Congo
8 Myanmar
9 Angola
10 Niger
Taiwan
11Mozambique
12 Ivory Coast
13 Chad
14 South Sudan
Anguilla
15 Laos
16 Somalia
17 Cambodia
Macao
18 Guinea
19 Syria
20 Tajikistan

You could add testing to the mixture as well I guess if you want to account for that, but I have not done that for now.

Anyways my comments:

1: Tfw Syria and Somalia are doing better on covid than your own country

2: As expected, underdeveloped 3rd world countries seem to be the ones doing better, despite the initial fears of covid wrecking Africa that has not happened (if anything, the opposite is true)

3: Much more surprisingly, both the Chinese "special zone" of Macao; as well as the de facto independent country of Taiwan are doing quite well; and these are not dirt poor places of the world but rather more "middle income" ones. I wonder why they did so well; maybe Jachind can explain it somehow?

[Former President tack50]

Worst: America. Is this even a question?

Yes, because Brazil exists.

Actually, per my methodology, Brazil only just barely cracks the top 10 (507% of world average in cases/1M, 59% of world average in deaths/1M) while the US are getting the bronze medal (500% in cases/1M, 224% in deaths/1M)

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Honestly this is a simpler answer than what people think. Just go to per capita stats and do a mixture of deaths/capita and cases/capita

Here is my very rough methodology. Take the world average of cases/Capita and deaths/capita. Then see what percentage above or below the world average each country is (for example if the world average is 100 deaths and a country has 200 deaths, that means it gets 200%). Then average the 2 numbers for the deaths and cases above the world average.

Doing this very rough methodology you get the following list of the top 20 worst responses (I'll exclude microstates and places which are not really countries or are unrecognized and put them in italics):

Andorra
Faroe Islands
San Marino
Monaco
1 Luxembourg
Gibraltar
2 Peru
3 USA
4 Spain
5 United Arab Emirates
6 Bahrain
Channel Islands
7 Italy
8 Chile
9 Iceland
10 Brazil
Falkland Islands
11 UK
12 Sweden
13 France
Cayman Islands
14 Panama
15 Ireland
16 Mexico
Sint Maarten
17 Bolivia
18 Colombia
19 Netherlands
20 Ecuador

On that note, here would be the top 20 best responses to COVID, which is an slightly more surprising set of countries:

3 way tie at 0: Vatican City, Seychelles, Eritrea

1 Tanzania
2 Timor-Leste
Western Sahara
3 Burundi
4 Papua New Guinea
5 Dominica
6 Burkina Faso
7 Democratic Republic of Congo
8 Myanmar
9 Angola
10 Niger
Taiwan
11Mozambique
12 Ivory Coast
13 Chad
14 South Sudan
Anguilla
15 Laos
16 Somalia
17 Cambodia
Macao
18 Guinea
19 Syria
20 Tajikistan

You could add testing to the mixture as well I guess if you want to account for that, but I have not done that for now.

Anyways my comments:

1: Tfw Syria and Somalia are doing better on covid than your own country

2: As expected, underdeveloped 3rd world countries seem to be the ones doing better, despite the initial fears of covid wrecking Africa that has not happened (if anything, the opposite is true)

3: Much more surprisingly, both the Chinese "special zone" of Macao; as well as the de facto independent country of Taiwan are doing quite well; and these are not dirt poor places of the world but rather more "middle income" ones. I wonder why they did so well; maybe Jachind can explain it somehow?

It seems likely that measuring by cases is misleading because if you don't/can't test then you'll only find the most deadly cases. Also, not all cases are equal: considering the drastic difference in deaths between New Jersey or New York and Texas, California or Florida despite comparable case loads.

The best way to measure success would be to average the death rate with the relative change in GDP growth.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

It seems likely that measuring by cases is misleading because if you don't/can't test then you'll only find the most deadly cases. Also, not all cases are equal: considering the drastic difference in deaths between New Jersey or New York and Texas, California or Florida despite comparable case loads.

The best way to measure success would be to average the death rate with the relative change in GDP growth.

Judging from his post I am pretty sure tack50 is not interested in measuring the economic response.

[Former President tack50]

It seems likely that measuring by cases is misleading because if you don't/can't test then you'll only find the most deadly cases. Also, not all cases are equal: considering the drastic difference in deaths between New Jersey or New York and Texas, California or Florida despite comparable case loads.

The best way to measure success would be to average the death rate with the relative change in GDP growth.

Judging from his post I am pretty sure tack50 is not interested in measuring the economic response.

Yeah, I am not taking into account the economic response in that metric. That is certainly something that could be measured as well but I have not done it for now

Really it's just a rough average of the "deaths per capita" and "cases per capita" measures, compared to the worldwide average. I could include testing however

[CumbrianLefty]

Worst: America. Is this even a question?

Yes, because Brazil exists.

Actually, per my methodology, Brazil only just barely cracks the top 10 (507% of world average in cases/1M, 59% of world average in deaths/1M) while the US are getting the bronze medal (500% in cases/1M, 224% in deaths/1M)

Well that is certainly telling for the US.