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Cambodia goes down one rank in Nikkei Global Covid-19 Recovery Index
Cambodia went down one rank in the latest Nikkei Global Covid-19 Recovery Index for the second time in a row but positioned itself in third place behind Rwanda and Vietnam.
Cambodia was ranked first in the index last June, following a wide range of measures adopted by the country to check Covid-19, including the massive vaccination campaigns and the early reopening of the economy.
It slipped to the second rank behind Middle East nation Bahrain in July.
With 81 points, African country Rwanda tops the latest recovery ranking for August, while Cambodia’s neighbour Vietnam jumped two positions to reach second in the Index. Vietnam was given 79 points and Cambodia 78.
The index assesses countries and regions on infection management, vaccine rollouts and social mobility. The higher the ranking, the closer an area is to recovery, characterized by lower infection and death rates, and better inoculation coverage, as well as fewer movement restrictions.
Data sources for the index included Our World in Data, Google Covid-19 Community Mobility Reports, Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, flight data firm Cirium and Nikkei Asia research.
According to the health ministry data, by August last 94.78 percent of the total population of around 16 million were vaccinated in Cambodia (with at least one dose). Almost 10 million people have received three doses, while nearly four million received a fourth dose and more than 600,000 a fifth.
The Kingdom is also among the first in the region to reopen for business with its widely acclaimed ‘Live with Covid-19’ policy. The country had ended most of its Covid-19 restrictions as early as November 2021 and a majority of the businesses reopened then.
According to yesterday’s official data, Cambodia recorded nine new Covid-19 cases (diagnosed by PCR test), bringing the total cases to 137,719. There were no new deaths, keeping the total deaths to 3,056 from Covid-19 in the Kingdom.
All the nine new cases were due to spread in the community and no new imported cases were recorded. There were also 11 recoveries yesterday. Currently, there are 73 active Covid-19 cases in the Kingdom.
Meanwhile, China’s mobility score – seven out of a maximum of 30 – is the lowest among 121 countries and regions covered by the index, followed by Hong Kong’s 14 and Taiwan’s 16.5. These are the last few places on the earth that
still enforce quarantines on inbound travellers.
However, Taiwan is trying to reopen its borders by resuming visa-free entry for visitors from the US, Europe and some other departure points, starting next week, it has announced.
Hong Kong cut short the quarantine period for foreign arrivals to three days from seven in mid-August, though further relaxation appears unlikely in near future. The city’s daily infections have exceeded 10,000 since March, as the omicron BA.5 subvariant becomes the dominant strain.
Globally, the subvariant’s prevalence rose to 86.8 percent in late August, according to the World Health Organization.
China has the biggest fall in the recovery index in August as it went back 20 places to 50th as Beijing tightened measures yet again to stop the spread of the coronavirus ahead of a key Communist Party congress. In contrast, Singapore and Taiwan each climbed more than 20 spots to 19th and 57th, respectively mainly due to a drop in infections and ease of anti-Covid-19 policies.
Even with a daily infection count that barely topped 2,000, China reacted to its latest outbreaks with another round of lockdowns across the country, including in some of its biggest cities.
Under China’s zero-COVID policy, residents in any high-risk area are not allowed to step outside. The movement of people in medium-risk locations is also restricted.
Japan and South Korea continued to report the most cases throughout the month, but their weekly caseloads fell. They ranked 84th and 14th, respectively.
Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501149393/cambodia-goes-down-one-rank-in-nikkei-global-covid-19-recovery-index/