Research Finds Greece Leads the World With its Pandemic Response

Greece is leading the world in its response to Covid-19. A new study on crisis management and resilience during the pandemic published by the Bereslmann Foundation on Friday has ranked Greece amongst the top ten in multiple categories.

The researchers analyzed 29 OECD and European Union countries response to the Covid-19 pandemic, paying specific attention to “the resilience of democracy, the resilience of governance capacity, economic resilience and the resilience of the welfare state during the first year of the pandemic.”

The study found that Greece did exceptionally well across multiple categories, and that its governance was improved by the pandemic.

Greece is ranked ninth in the “Resilience of Governance
category with a score of 7.56 out of 10, and eighth in “Reslience of the Republic” with a score of 8.5 out of 10. The study noted that Greece excelled in governance during the pandemic, ranking it second in policy making for its “evidence-based and expert advice of policy-making.”

“Greece has achieved top positions in the rating scales and is one of the surprisingly successful states in managing the pandemic and one of the well-placed states,” the study concluded.

The 29 OECD and European countries included in the study were Canada, the United States, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Chile, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Spain, Portugal Italy, Greece, South Korea, Japan, and New Zealand.

Greece reports two more Omicron cases

Greece reported two more cases of the Covid-19 strain Omicron on Monday, bringing the total number of the known cases in the country to three.

The two new cases are related to people in Athens who recently traveled from South Africa, authorities said. They added that all the individuals’ contacts since arriving in the Greek capital are being monitored.

The first case of the Omicron variant was confirmed on Thursday by Minister of Health Thanos Plevris.

He said that a Greek citizen who recently arrived from South Africa had been diagnosed as having the variant on the Greek island of Crete.

The Minister assured the public that all quarantine and tracking protocols have been observed.

Evidence Omicron produces less severe infections

The news comes as evidence is mounting that Omicron may be producing less severe infections than previous Covid-19 variants, like Delta.

On Saturday, the South African Medical Research Council published a report about an Omicron-driven outbreak in the Tshwane district in South Africa’s northern Gauteng Province, one of the first areas in the world where Omicron has overtaken Delta as the dominant strain.

The researchers wrote that in the last two weeks there has been an “exponential” rise in caseloads, but significantly, the surge has not corresponded to a significant uptick in hospitalizations and deaths.