The UAE has secured third place in list of countries that are best to live during Covid-19 pandemic in accordance to how well they controlled the coronavirus while reopening their economies at the same time. The Emirates stood behind only Ireland and Spain in the Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking, published monthly.

A constant decrease in the number of cases and deaths, along with very high vaccination rates, helped UAE to jump three places up since the last ranking. Ireland and Spain hold the top two spots, and other European nations take up most of the rest of the top 10.

The UAE, which has had slightly under three quarters of a million Covid-19 cases and 2,135 deaths, has remarkably increased its control of the pandemic after recent peak in May and June. There are now less than 1,000 cases a week, that is lowest for over a year. Number of deaths too have been in single digits during recent weeks.

A very high vaccination rate, of 97.3 per cent, that is world’s highest, has also helped UAE achieve overall Bloomberg Resilience Score of 74.6. No 1 ranked Ireland has a resilience score of 75.1, with its high vaccination rate and cautious reopening. Bloomberg has, however, named the country among several to have a “worrying uptick” in case numbers.

Spain, with a score of 74.6, is lauded for easing Covid restrictions and bringing weekly case numbers down to slightly above 10,000, compared to 190,000 at in July.

Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer and consultant in communicable disease control at the University of Exeter in the UK, said, “Countries like Greece, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, they wear their masks and get on with it, and their case numbers are low.”

He contrasted the relative success of these countries with the UK, which fell nine places to take 25th position because of continuously rising case numbers. “The UK has adopted a laissez-faire attitude, so there’s a groundswell of, ‘We don’t want to wear masks and we don’t want to take precautions,’ and we’re behind with our immunisation,” he said.

The top 20 countries includes Saudi Arabia, which is placed 15th with a score of 68.5. It has a slightly lower vaccination rate, of 66.5 per cent, and slightly tougher restrictions than most countries in the top 10.

Another notable inclusion is Chile, in eighth position, whose rise of 23 places reflects an improved situation in South America.

The Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking is not simply an indicator of how well a country is able to control the coronavirus. Nations (such as China in 28th position) with very low case and death rates but tougher Covid-related restrictions score below others (such as the UK) that have far higher case numbers and death rates but fewer restrictions.

Measures such as vaccination coverage, quality of healthcare, mortality rates and the extent to which travel has restarted are used to frame the list.

Bloomberg noted that South-East Asian nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines remained in the bottom six of the table for the third month.

While Malaysia, that has 75.6 per cent of people fully vaccinated, has a relatively high immunisation rate, the others are far behind. Thailand has 50.6 per cent fully vaccinated, Vietnam 37.8 per cent and the Philippines on 26 per cent, according to Bloomberg.

“If they haven’t got vaccination coverage in the high 80s, then you always have that fear that people who are not immunised will get severe disease and they will overwhelm the hospital system,” Dr Pankhania said. Although trying to boost vaccination rate, Dr Pankhania said South-East Asian nations are struggling with a lack of vaccine supply.