The Netherlands is one of the best places to be in the world during the Delta outbreak (say what!)

Despite the Netherlands’ highly-criticised response during coronavirus, Bloomberg’s Covid-19 Resilience Ranking for August has ranked the Netherlands as the second-best country in the world for its current management of coronavirus.

The emergence of Delta in the past few months has thrown many curveballs, with countries like New Zealand — famed for its containment of the virus — tumbling back into lockdown, while the early champ of the vaccine race, Israel, saw a huge surge in infections — eek!

The Delta rollercoaster didn’t spare the Netherlands either. From early relaxations (remember “dancing with Janssen” 👀) to a 500% increase in cases in a single week, we all thought our summer holidays were on the rocks.

Resilience based on 12 data indicators

That’s why it may come as a surprise to many (we are certainly bowled over) that the Netherlands has been ranked by Bloomberg as the second-best place to be in the world right now for its management of coronavirus — echt!?

The Covid Resilience Ranking is a monthly snapshot of how the 53 biggest economies in the world are handling the virus.

Bloomberg has come up with a resilience score based on several data indicators. These include:

  • coronavirus containment,
  • the quality of healthcare,
  • vaccination coverage,
  • overall mortality, and
  • progress toward restarting travel and easing border restrictions.

#2 in the Covid Resilience Ranking

Now, we know we all love to hate on the government’s management of the coronavirus situation (we’re looking at you, Hugo de Jonge) but it turns out that their middle ground strategy really seems to be working. Yeah, we’re surprised too.

Over the past month, the Netherlands has flown 12 places up the ranking — landing in spot number two for the best management of coronavirus behind Norway, and ahead of Finland.

Whoop whoop, go the Netherlands 🥳

Four factors largely contributed to this high score: people covered by vaccines, lockdown severity, flight capacity, and vaccinated travel routes. Here’s the breakdown:

  • 💉 63.1% of people in the Netherlands are covered by vaccines
  • 🍻 We have the 36th most severe lockdown out of 53 countries — so somewhere in the middle
  • ✈️ Flight capacity is only 32.2% lower than where it was at this time in 2019
  • 🗺️ If you’ve had a shot, there are 353.5 different travel routes available to you right now

@TheDutchGovernment — we’re sorry, we’re going to stop complaining about you now.

The winners and the losers

In August, nine out of the top 10 countries on the ranking were European countries. The bottom five are Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia

Having been number one on the resilience list since the ranking was created last November, August saw New Zealand plunge 26 places, as their lockdown went from being the most relaxed to the strictest. Israel and the US who ranked highly in spring aren’t doing too well either.

What are your thoughts on the Netherlands Covid-19 resilience? Tell us in the comments below!

Feature Image: Dutchscenery/Depositphotos

Jen Lorimer 🇿🇼
Jen Lorimer 🇿🇼
An avid tea drinker, Jen was born and raised in Zimbabwe. She moved to Utrecht in 2017 to pursue her history degree. She loves people-watching, canoeing the Utrecht canals, and observing how the Dutch come alive in summer. Having been traumatised by a Dutch circle party, Jen wants to help equip other internationals with tips and tricks to survive and thrive in this wonderful flat country.

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