Greece ranked 19th by Bloomberg in best countries to be in during COVID-19 pandemic

Almost a year and a half into the pandemic, the best and worst places to be in the COVID-19 era are increasingly defined by one thing: normalisation.

Central to that is an economy’s openness to the world, and that’s why we’ve introduced a new element—Reopening Progress—to Bloomberg’s COVID-19 Resilience Ranking.

Two new metrics capture the ease of moving in and out of a place and how much air travel has recovered, alongside our 10 other measures tracking mortality rates to infection counts, freedom of movement to economic growth.

This pivot has ushered in dramatic changes to the ranks. The U.S. is now No. 1, with its fast and expansive vaccine rollout, dominated by the highly effective Messenger RNA shots, stemming what was once the world’s worst outbreak.

Bloomberg’s COVID-19 Resilience Ranking provides a glimpse of how the pandemic is playing out in 53 major economies right now.

By pivoting more toward opening up and the revival of global travel, we also provide a window into how these economies’ fortunes may shift in the future as places exit the pandemic at different speeds.

It’s not a final verdict—it never could be, given the imperfections in virus and vaccine data and the fast pace of this crisis. Circumstance and pure luck also play a role, but are hard to quantify.

New variants of concern, which will continue to emerge as outbreaks rage in the developing world, are also a wild card: scientists fear mutations that can overcome existing vaccination and drive a new phase of the pandemic, Bloomberg wrote.

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