Trinidad and Tobago now tops Oxford covid19 tracker

Trinidad and Tobago is now listed at number one in an updated covid19 lockdown rollback checklist compiled by Oxford University researchers.

The report, the Oxford Covid19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), was created by the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Goverment (BSG).

The data is analysed by a team of researchers led by Dr Thomas Hale, associate professor of global public policy at BSG.

It is a working paper, which means it is a non-peer-reviewed article. These are used for early drafts to gather feedback before they are submitted to academic journals.

This country shares the lead with Croatia, Hong Kong and Iceland.

The list which ranks countries that meet World Health Organization's recommendations for relaxing physical distancing measures.

In a previous list issued on April 23, TT was ranked second to Vietnam.

TT and nearly 160 other countries were graded in four areas: cases controlled; test, trace and isolate; manage import cases; and community understanding.

This country has a score of one, the highest achievable, for control of cases, as well as community understanding, along with other high scores of 0.8 for testing and isolation, and 0.9 for community understanding. It gives the country a total score of 0.9.

Croatia, Hong Kong and Iceland were ranked joint first with the same score.

By comparison, the UK is languishing near to the bottom, only four places above Iran, which sits last. The UK's total score is 0.3, with the only respectable score being 0.9 in community understanding.

The first published list not did not identify the countries' individual scores.

Before ranking each country by scores, the document notes that while the publisher, Oxford Covid19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), and its data cannot fully say how ready countries are to leave lockdown, it provides for a rough comparison across nations.

"Even this 'high level' view reveals that few countries are close to meeting the WHO criteria for rolling back lock-down measures. At the time of writing, only a handful of countries are doing well at the four 'checklist' criteria OxCGRT is able to track," the report says.

Hale's report used WHO guidelines as its basis.

Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, asked for his thoughts on TT's number-two position on Wednesday, said the population should not react with a false sense of security.

He added, however, that the Oxford report is "a very good report" and "paints us in an excellent light."

"This is testimony to what we have been saying all along," Deyalsingh said, "that our response to covid, led by the prime minister, was a robust one...What this speaks to is that the world is recognising that the decision not to flip a switch and open back the economy is the right way."