The UAE has been ranked first in the latest COVID-19 global resilience rankings, thanks to its proactive mass testing, vaccination campaign and administration of booster doses to curb the spread of the virus. Followed by Cyprus, Bahrain and Israel, the Emirates was placed first in the Pandemic Resilience Index 2022. The ranking has been compiled by US-based advocacy group Consumer Choice Centre. The original index has collected data up until March last year during when the UAE was ranked second globally in terms of COVID-19 resilience.

The group recently released the updated index which incorporated new data between the end of March and late November last year. As part of this data, the group took into consideration every country's booster programme.

Speaking in the matter, Maria Chaplia, research manager at the Consumer Choice Centre, affirmed that the UAE emerged pioneer in terms of its booster rollout. She added that countries like New Zealand, Ukraine, Australia, Spain and Canada took five months longer to implement necessary campaigns.

“Compared to the initial results, the change in the ranking is largely due to the booster vaccine rollout delays," the official added.

According to the report, Israel, which emerged as the most resilient country in the original index, launched its booster vaccination campaign 75 days later than the UAE.

Over the past few months, COVID-19 variants have raised concerns over the impact of the virus. Taking note of these concerns, the UAE proactively increased its testing and vaccination campaign with the aim of curbing the spread of the pandemic.

In addition, Greece recorded the highest surge in testing (up 500 percent) between March and November last year, while Luxembourg and Sweden appeared to have reduced their testing.

The Pandemic Resilience Index has ranked 40 countries in accordance with the resilience displayed by their health authorities against COVID-19 crises. Countries were ranked out of 10 for their proactive efforts in tackling the pandemic. As per this ranking, the UAE secured 9.5.

Furthermore, two countries moved down the list including Israel (from first to fourth) and the UK (from fourth to seventh).