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The U.S.'s surge to No. 1

Here's the latest news from the global pandemic.

The U.S.'s surge to No. 1

Since November 2020, Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking has tracked the best and worst places to be in the pandemic every month. Early on, with the coronavirus raging through most parts of the world and the death toll mounting, the economies that topped the ranking consistently were places that had stamped out local transmission through aggressive, isolationist measures, like New Zealand and Singapore.

Then came the vaccines. With inoculation rapidly unfolding across the world and highly-vaccinated nations reopening tourism and lifting restrictions on social activity, normalization is now a significant measure of where one would love, and loathe, to be.

With the addition of two new metrics reflecting reopening progress to the Ranking's composition—flight capacity recovery and vaccinated travel routes—the U.S. has surged to No. 1.

Customers sitting in the outdoor dining section of a restaurant in New York.

Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

It's a stunning turnaround for the superpower, which had the worst outbreak in the world amid a politically polarized atmosphere. At the peak of its crisis, the U.S. was slow—or failed entirely—to adopt the containment practices honed by those top performers, from border controls to mandatory mask-wearing and contact-tracing.

It turns out that the U.S. did not have to succeed at containment to be the first major nation to essentially exit the pandemic, though its overall death toll of over 600,000 people leaves a deep scar. European nations are also following the same positive trajectory of vaccination and normalization.

Meanwhile, developing countries unable to secure vaccine supply are still drowning under new waves, while previously top-performing containment stars like Singapore and New Zealand are struggling to find a path to reopen.

Can this turnaround for the U.S. and other rich western nations hold? The spread of the delta variant, which the World Health Organization says is the most transmissible to have emerged so far, could be another inflection point, plunging these places back into outbreaks and lockdowns.

Is the light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel ephemeral, or will it keep growing stronger and shine on more places? The July Ranking will have some answers. Stay tuned.—Rachel Chang

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Aerial view of the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Photographer: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP

 

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Australia Battles Delta Strain Emerging Nationwide
Clusters show the limits of its Covid-zero strategy of closed borders, testing.
Abu Dhabi Starts Using Facial Covid-19 Scanners
Technology measures electromagnetic waves; to be used at malls, airports.
S. Africa Bans Alcohol, Shuts Schools to Curb Virus
Ban on alcohol sales is the fourth since the start of the pandemic last year.
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