China ranks first on coronavirus outbreak response poll

Researchers surveyed around 12,500 people across 23 countries between April 3 and 19. They asked the citizens of each country to assess their governments across four key indicators. These are national political leadership, community, corporate leadership, and media.

China, where the virus reportedly sprang, ranks first on coronavirus outbreak response poll. The country got a score of 85 out of 100. Following the world’s second largest economy are Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, and India.

Meanwhile, the international community commended New Zealand for handling the outbreak. The country started easing restrictions last year. It was the only Western country to score higher than the global average of 45.

Moreover, Australia, the US, and all four western European countries (Germany, the UK, Italy, and France all ranked below the global average.

1. China - 86
2. Vietnam — 77
3. UAE — 59
4. India — 59
5. Malaysia — 58
6. New Zealand — 56
7. Taiwan — 50
8. Philippines — 49
9. Indonesia — 48
10. Singapore — 48
11. South Africa — 47
12. Australia — 43
13. Germany — 41
14. U.S — 41
15. Mexico — 37
16. U.K. — 37
17. Iran — 36
18. Thailand — 36
19. Italy — 36
20. South Korea — 31
21. Hong Kong — 27
22. France — 26
23. Japan — 16

David Black, founder and chief executive officer of Blackbox Research, suggests that the level of dissatisfaction particularly from Western countries has a deeper impact. The results could form a dent to national psyches in terms of expectations about preparedness for unexpected events.

“For many of these countries, this pandemic is unprecedented. Governments are still coming to terms with a crisis they did not expect, and public confidence suffered as a result,” said Black.

“Meanwhile, a significant part of Asia has had their leadership shaped by past epidemics, such as SARS and MERS,” he added, referring to two other deadly respiratory diseases that coronavirus causes. These viruses were predominant in Asia and the Middle East.

In the area of business response to the coronavirus pandemic, responders from China and Vietnam gave their countries’ corporations a response rating of over 50.

Meanwhile, citizens in France, Hong Kong, and Japan rated their business response the poorest.

Results also magnified a disparity in major economies’ ability to recover from the crisis. Moreover, the majority of Chinese people said they believe their country will emerge from the crisis stronger, compared to less than half of Americans.