PM Jacinda Ardern and Dr Ashley Bloomfield announce five new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand with three in the community - NZ will retain current alert levels until review on September 14. Video / Pool
Germany is the safest country in the world when it comes to Covid-19 followed closely by New Zealand, according to a newly released survey.
The ranking places South Korea third while Switzerland - which was first - has dropped back to fourth and Japan is fifth, according to Forbes online.
Australia and China are sixth and seventh respectively.
The ranking of the safest countries in the world for Covid-19 was first released by Deep Knowledge Group in June.
Now the thinktank has updated its data and methodology and re-issued a report on the safest countries and regions, Forbes reported.
The ranking was not just about how many infections there are at present, or how many deaths Covid-19 has caused in each country.
Whether a country has been hit hard by Covid-19 or not is taken into consideration, but also factored into the rankings was whether there is political will and social acceptance of quarantine and lockdown measures.
It also considered whether the national and local governments cooperate well, a nation has good monitoring and detection, and a strong medical system.
Another part of the equation related to how vulnerable a country was to economic dislocation because of the pandemic, plus how well-equipped a country was to handle emergencies.
The United States ranked a distant 55th, behind Hungary, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Bulgaria.
The most dangerous nations for Covid according to the ranking were Somaliland, South Sudan, Afghanistan and Mali.
According to Forbes, Deep Knowledge Group said it looked at more than 140 parameters and considered more than 35,000 data points, both up significantly from June's report.
"Deep Knowledge Group's new Covid-19 special analytical case study is designed to classify, analyse and rank the economic, social and health stability achieved by each of the 250 countries and regions included in its analysis, as well as the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats or risks that they present in the battle against the global health and economic crisis triggered by Covid-19," Deep Knowledge Group said.
The 20 safest countries, according to the report
1 Germany 2 New Zealand 3 South Korea 4 Switzerland 5 Japan 6 Australia 7 China 8 Austria 9 United Arab Emirates 10 Singapore 11 Israel 12 Canada 13 Saudi Arabia 14 Iceland 15 Taiwan 16 Norway 17 Liechtenstein 18 Hong Kong 19 Finland 20 Kuwait
