For the third month in a row, the Philippines figured last in Bloomberg’s Covid-19 resilience ranking, which had 53 countries in its list.
Bloomberg said Southeast Asian countries continued to rank at the bottom of the list.
The Philippines has given out less than 73.2 doses per 100 people, according to the report. Bloomberg said giving out 100 Covid-19 vaccine shots per 100 people was a “key barrier to improving their scores.”
According to Bloomberg, the Philippines has only given out
Bloomberg’s ranking was based on indicators such as virus containment, quality of healthcare, vaccination coverage, overall mortality and progress toward restarting travel.
In a statement, acting Palace spokesman Karlo Nograles said the list failed to include “country-specific Covid-19 contexts.”
“[I]n our view, [it] is imperative to objectively assess how countries managed pandemic response,” he said.
Nograles pointed at the importance given by Bloomberg in “reopening progress,” which included lockdown severity, flight capacity and vaccinated travel routes.
“The evidence shows that the Alert Level System and the granular lockdowns that we implemented in November 2021 are some of the key interventions that have enabled us to effectively manage Covid-19 risks while providing for an environment conducive to economic growth,” he said.
Nograles reiterated that the country’s goal was to “strike a balance between the management of Covid-19 and the safe reopening of the economy––to protect lives and secure livelihoods.”
“Having said this, our economic team will continue to put a greater emphasis on our country-specific conditions or context in order to craft policies that are more responsive to our people’s needs and the requisites of economic recovery,” he said.
The Philippines has been seeing a downturn in its daily Covid-19 cases. It recorded less than 1,000 cases over the past two days.
It has 15,327 active Covid-19 cases as of Dec. 1. John Ezekiel J. Hirro