Covid: Malaysia Fourth Worst Place To Be As Omicron Looms
Malaysia ranked 50th of 53 economies in Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking last month, scoring poorly on lockdown severity, flight capacity, vaccinated travel routes, community mobility, and 2021 GDP growth forecast.
(Code Blue) – A year since Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking debuted in November 2020, Malaysia now ranks among the bottom at 50th out of the 53 largest economies.
In Bloomberg’s November 2021 Covid Resilience Ranking released last November 30, Malaysia ranked only above Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with Malaysia maintaining its 50th spot from October. Singapore and Thailand placed 37th and 47th respectively.
Malaysia’s ranking gradually fell from its peak in November 2020 to among the worst countries in August this year, at the height of its epidemic, before picking up slowly, albeit still among the bottom-ranked nations.
Malaysia’s decline to “worse” ranking started last June after a steep fall from April.
The Omicron variant of concern, believed to be more transmissible than the Delta strain, has been reported in dozens of countries globally, including two imported cases in Singapore and two infections in India. Malaysia — with the world’s second lowest Covid-19 genomic sequencing over the past month — has yet to detect Omicron.
Southeast Asian countries, Bloomberg noted last November 24, replaced Latin American economies as the worst places to be during the pandemic in the second half of the year due to slow vaccine rollouts and resurgent coronavirus outbreaks.
