The Philippines slid to last place anew in the latest Bloomberg’s Covid-19 resilience rankings.
The Philippines was last in the rankings in three out of the last four iterations of the resilience index.
The exception was on Dec. 23, when the country edged up three places as restrictions were eased, vaccination rates improved and the positive test rate fell.
The drop in rankings reflected the results of the latest surge in Covid-19 cases in the Philippines, which has forced its government to reimpose stricter mobility restrictions.
“Difficulties administering vaccines in remote areas continue to be a vulnerability as the country sees an Omicron surge worse than other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand,” the report said.
But acting Palace spokesman Karlo Nograles said the Bloomberg rankings did not reflect the country’s “resilience,” citing its economic growth.
While the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) indeed grew 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, the Bloomberg rankings included data from January. The post-holiday surge in the country peaked in January.
The Philippines has 231,658 active Covid-19 cases as of Jan. 28.
It has over 58 million fully vaccinated individuals, of which more than have been boosted, and 60.2 million partially vaccinated persons. John Ezekiel J. Hirro