These “COVID rankings” are being widely shared, but I think it illustrates why it’s unhelpful to try and precisely score countries in this way at a specific point mid-pandemic (first 36 weeks in this case)... https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/covid-performance/#rankings 1/

The study uses cases, deaths and testing data to rank countries. But compare the case curves of Cyprus (ranked 5th), Latvia (9th), Uruguay (12th), Singapore (13th) and Finland (17th). Things have changed a lot since first half of 2020: 2/

Or look at Philippines (79th) and Oman (91st) - if we’re judging on COVID metrics alone (as the ranking does), is it really plausible to say they’ve had worse epidemic than Austria (42nd), Ireland (43rd), Portugal (63rd) and UK (66th)? 3/

It’s crucial to learn from international examples, but comparisons are a complex task in an ongoing pandemic, and these kinds of arbitrary single-point-in-time scores probably obscure more than they reveal. 4/4