Check out this story: Study ranks New Zealand Covid-19 response best, Brazil worst, US in bottom five https://flip.it/e8fy76 from Flipboard.

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China excluded

China – where the first cases were identified in December 2019 – was not included in the rankings because of what the think tank described as a lack of publicly available data on testing.

Beijing has aggressively tried to manage public perceptions about its handling of the disease as it tries to show its authoritarian system is preferable to democracies, many of which have faltered badly in the crisis.

"Levels of economic development or differences in political systems between countries had less of an impact on outcomes than often assumed or publicised," the institute said in its analysis.

There was no clear winner when it came to which political system best handled the pandemic, it said.

Instead, almost across the board, the response has been lacklustre. "Some countries have managed the pandemic better than others -- but most countries outcompeted each other only by degrees of underperformance," the report said.

Smaller nations – with populations of fewer than 10 million people – did appear to have some advantages. "In general, countries with smaller populations, cohesive societies, and capable institutions have a comparative advantage in dealing with a global crisis such as a pandemic," the report said.

Overall, cases have now topped 100 million worldwide and some 2.2 million people have died from the virus since the outbreak began in December 2019.

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