New Zealand ousted as best place to live during pandemic

Slower vaccine roll outs have led to Singapore taking the top spot

BY Emily Douglas 28 Apr 2021

New Zealand is no longer the best place to be during the COVID-19 pandemic, having been knocked off its podium by none other than Singapore.

According to Bloomberg’s COVID resilience ranking, both countries are very close in their overall marks - however, New Zealand’s slower vaccine rollout allowed Singapore to take the top spot. The report found that Singapore has already vaccinated the equivalent of one fifth of their overall population of 5.7 million. The Bloomberg ranking considers factors such as lockdown severity, healthcare, vaccines, and fatalities, before tallying all countries.

New Zealand PM Jacinda Arden recently told border staff that they would have to be vaccinated quickly or face being redeployed. Speaking to TVNZ’s Breakfast, Arden was clear in insisting she wanted all frontline workers to have the vaccine before the end of April.

“From Monday through until the end of April, that becomes the final window where if people are not vaccinated in that period of time, then they are redeployed, they are moved on,” she explained. “And that was always the point we had to get to. We believe we have a health and safety obligation to people who are at the frontline in managed isolation. It's a big call, but we'd always had the view that people would have to be moved on at that stage."

For now, New Zealand is still ranked as the second-best place to live during times of COVID-19 – only time will tell if a renewed focus on vaccinations will change this.