| Every month, Bloomberg crunches the numbers for a snapshot of the best and worst places to be in the Covid-19 era. The Covid Resilience Ranking—covering 11 moving indicators including cases, fatalities, vaccines, people's freedom of movement and economic prospects—shows where the virus has been handled the most effectively, with the least amount of social and economic disruption. Nearly a year since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, the U.S. and parts of Europe are emerging from the darkest chapters yet of their outbreaks. While headlines have been dominated by the rush to vaccinate, these countries' gains have largely stemmed from containment measures like mask-wearing and staying home. The U.S. is also poised for a faster-than-expected economic rebound. Its rank leapt eight spots in February to 27th. Four months in, we see a rich-poor disparity steadily emerging on the ranking. While developed Western nations may have been wrong-footed by the insidious nature of the virus at first, they have since gained ground faster than developing economies, scaling up testing capabilities and laying claim to the first batches of vaccines.  Parisians await the return to closed restaurants. Photographer: Kiran Ridley/Getty Images Europe Wealthy economies previously in the bottom 10, like France, Belgium and Italy, have climbed since November, leaving behind countries like South Africa and Indonesia. Given the domination of vaccine supply by wealthy governments, this gap is likely to persist in 2021. Through the changes of the last four months, the top and bottom of the Ranking remained stable, reflecting the gap that has opened up between the Covid haves and have-nots. New Zealand, with its closed borders, four vaccine deals and near-elimination of the virus locally, holds onto pole position for the fourth month running. Mexico stays at 53rd, the last of the ranked places, with the worst case-fatality rate among all the economies. Israel, the global leader in inoculations, is providing real-world proof that the experimental mRNA vaccines work not just to prevent deaths but to also slow transmission. But its improvement of rank is moving slowly—up just one place to 14th—as the rapid vaccine rollout has yet to fully quell a wave of the highly infectious U.K. variant across the country. This reflects the dangers that mutations continue to pose. Can the U.S. and other major western economies keep climbing as spring arrives and the pace of vaccination accelerates? Stay tuned.—Jinshan Hong | 
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