A non-credible ranking on pandemic preparedness
See PDF of the report:
See PDF of the New York Times article:
The World Is Unprepared for the Next Pandemic, Report Says – The New York Times
In December 2021, the 2021 Global Health Security Index was made public, a kind of ranking in terms of the preparation of countries to respond to epidemics and pandemics. It is the second time it has been carried out (the first was in 2019, a little before the pandemic) and it analyzes 195 countries.
The report is produced by The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit group, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
More than 90% of the countries analyzed lack a vaccine or medication distribution plan during an emergency, while 70% show insufficient capacity in hospitals and medical centers.
The average index is 38.9, similar to that of 2019 and there is no adequately prepared country, which would start at 80.1 points.
However, the most surprising thing is that in the 2019 ranking, the first country in the ranking is the United States and the second the United Kingdom, two of the countries with the worst behavior in the face of the pandemic, according to all the analyzes that can be made, which leads us to distrust this ranking.
In the 2021 ranking, the United States maintains number 1, with Australia being second. This year Spain with 60.9 points is in 17th place.
This striking fact is underlined by Dr. Ezekiel J Emanuel, in a statement published in the New York Times, who considers it a non-credible ranking.
One more proof that the rankings must be viewed with a lot of prevention and analyze very well what they consider.
