Nikkei Asia: Philippines ranks last in global COVID recovery index

MANILA - The Philippines fell to the bottom of the latest Nikkei Asia COVID recovery ranking this month, classifying it as the worst among 121 countries based on the trajectories of their recovery from the pandemic.

The new rating came a week after the Philippines also fell to the bottom of Bloomberg’s COVID Resilience Ranking.

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According to the Nikkei Asia's COVID-19 Recovery Index, the Philippines still has one of the lowest vaccination rates since only 30% of the country's population have been fully inoculated against the coronavirus as of Sept. 30.

The index said this is "low even among ASEAN countries".

Nikkei noted that the Philippine government began "granular" lockdowns in Metro Manila last month, easing some COVID-19 curbs, but minors and senior citizens aged 65 and up are still ordered to remain home.

"The country is gradually easing restrictions on businesses to revive the economy, allowing gyms to reopen and increasing restaurant dining and salon capacities for vaccinated individuals," it added.

The index, which calculates a score between 0 and 90 for each country or region based on infection management, vaccine rollouts, and social mobility, gave the Philippines 30.5 points at 121st place.

Meanwhile, the ASEAN country highest on the list was Indonesia (54th), followed by Singapore (70th), Cambodia (76th), Malaysia (102th), Myanmar (105th), and Thailand (109th).

Vietnam, which was the worst performer in the previous two rankings of Nikkei, went up to 118th.

Laos, meanwhile, dipped to second-worst among all 121 countries.

China, where the coronavirus first emerged, fell from 1st place to 9th place. The country had taken the top spot since the index was first published in July, the media outlet said.

Malta took 1st place with a score of 73.0.

As of Wednesday, the Philippines has logged 2,622,917 total COVID-19 infections, of which 112,807 or 4.3 percent are active, the Department of Health said in its latest bulletin.

The death toll stood at 38,838 while total recoveries have reached 2,471,282.

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The Philippines aims to vaccinate some 77 million people to achieve herd immunity and safely reopen its economy.

In an expansion of the country's vaccination drive, six hospitals will start inoculating children aged 12 to 17 next week, officials had said.

Some 21.9 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated, while 24.7 million have already received their first dose as of Monday, according to government data.

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