https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/COVID-19-Recovery-Index/Vietnam-Philippines-jump-up-COVID-Recovery-Index-after-easing-rules
COVID-19 RECOVERY INDEX
Vietnam, Philippines jump up COVID Recovery Index after easing rules
Cambodia and South Korea lead Asia while Taiwan slips to 113th place
HONG KONG -- Vietnam and the Philippines logged their best performances in Nikkei's COVID-19 Recovery Index for May, as both countries managed to ease restrictions while keeping infections low.
Taiwan, on the other hand, saw its ranking drop further to 113th, as the island battles surging infections and deaths.
The index assesses countries and regions on their infection management, vaccine rollouts and social mobility. The higher the ranking, the closer a place is to recovery, characterized by lower infection and death rates, better inoculation coverage, as well as fewer movement restrictions.
Both Vietnam and the Philippines had occupied last place in the index during 2021.
But based on May's data, Vietnam jumped 48 places to 14th. The biggest improvement came in its score for stringency, after the country allowed students to return to school and businesses to reopen. Vietnam is also the first country in Southeast Asia to exempt foreign travelers from all testing, vaccination and quarantine requirements.
With more than 80% of the population fully vaccinated and 60% boosted, Vietnam received a score of 27 out of a possible 30 for inoculations. Among the vaccines deployed there as of May 8, 46% were mRNA shots produced by Pfizer and Moderna, 28% were AstraZeneca's viral vector vaccines and 23% were conventional jabs from Chinese manufacturer Sinopharm, according to the World Health Organization.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has said that it has enough vaccines to offer third and fourth shots to eligible people aged 18 years and older.
Over in the Philippines, daily cases dropped to below 200 in the past week, with no confirmed deaths reported. The decline of infections helped the country's move up 40 spots in the ranking, to 33rd.
The nation reopened its borders to fully vaccinated international tourists in February. This week, it also stopped requiring foreign nationals with booster shots to present a negative test result on arrival.
Daily tourist arrivals have recovered to about 15,000, though this is still well below the pre-pandemic peak of 45,000 recorded in 2019, according to the Philippine News Agency.
Domestically, business has largely resumed and the government is encouraging all schools to hold face-to-face classes again this month.
Elsewhere, Cambodia and South Korea lead Asian countries at No. 2 and No. 8, respectively. Both are "living with" the virus and boast high vaccination coverage.
China edged up one place to 93rd. Its mobility score fell to a record low of 4.5 out of 30, far worse than any other country, as it still resorts to lockdowns to curb outbreaks. The latest data showed public transit passenger volume in 36 major cities was down by nearly 50% compared with the same period in 2019.
China's "zero COVID" policy is unlikely to end until after the Communist Party's 20th National Congress, expected to be held in November this year, according to experts at the Economist Intelligence Unit. This means China's borders will remain shut for the time being, slowing the recovery of the global tourism industry and Asian markets in particular.
The country may, however, play a key role in the travel recovery in 2023. "We expect China to open borders for international travel and tourism after the first quarter of 2023, helping to maintain the momentum of international arrivals globally, even if demand in the West starts to taper off," EIU analyst Ejaz Ahmed said at a seminar on Wednesday.
For the latest recovery index ranking, a score on testing was removed from the calculations due to insufficient data for a fair comparison, as some countries have changed their testing and reporting guidelines.