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South Korean medical workers transport a COVID-19 patient. (Getty Images)

Germany has been named as the “safest” country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A report recently shared by the Deep Knowledge Group (DKG), a Hong Kong-based consortium of for-profit and nonprofit organizations, assessing 252 countries and regions and ranking them according to virus safety put Germany in first place with 762.64 points. While over 9,400 people in Germany have died of the virus to date, the country was rated as having the best response posture at a general societal level.

DKG rated COVID-19 safety for the regions in question according to over 140 items in six categories: quarantine efficiency, monitoring and detection, health readiness, national vulnerability, and emergency treatment readiness. The researchers who published the report acknowledged that infection numbers and death tolls were an issue, but stressed that other important factors included political will to respond to the disease, societal acceptance of disease control efforts and lockdowns, cooperation between the central and local governments, and the detection and healthcare systems.

COVID-19 Regional Safety Assessment(provided by the Deep Knowledge Group, DKG)

Germany received particularly high marks in the areas of government efficiency and health readiness. New Zealand, an island country that declared an early end to its pandemic, climbed to second place on the strength of its high quarantine efficiency. South Korea, which placed third at 750.79 points, received relatively high marks for government efficiency and was rated as having excellent emergency response capabilities relative to the general public health system. While its health readiness score was nearly 20 points below Germany’s, its score on emergency treatment readiness was over 10 points higher.

Switzerland and Japan were separated by just a few points in fourth and fifth place, respectively. Switzerland ranked first in the same assessment in June, but dipped to fourth amid a change in assessment data and methodology. China, which has come under fire as the country where the virus originated, ranked seventh. Its rating in the category of emergency treatment readiness was far ahead of other countries due to its intensive response measures, including full-scale city lockdowns at a relatively early stage. Taiwan, which has been praised as a model of disease prevention efforts, was in 15th place.

Typically ranked toward the top of national assessments, the countries of Northern Europe performed relatively poorly. Iceland, Norway, and Finland placed in the top 20 at 14th, 16th, and 19th, respectively. Sweden, which has become a source of controversy over its “herd immunity” efforts, came in at 49th, earning especially low marks in the category of monitoring and detection. The US, which leads the world in deaths, ranked 55th, with France one rung higher at 54th.

By Park Jung-eon, assistant editor

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