The Countries Best Prepared to Deal With a Pandemic

Critics of the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic have described the preparedness of the U.S. as “pathetic” and “completely inadequate”. But one might ask, “Compared to what?”

Well, it turns out that the U.S. was actually better prepared than other nations, whatever you think of that level of preparedness. The Global Health Security Index, a joint project of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, ranks countries around the world on their preparedness on a variety of scales and for a variety of health threats. One of them is “Best Prepared to Deal With a Pandemic.”

The U.S., shockingly to some, was #1. (chart from statista.com)

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