Vulnerability to COVID-19 May be Highest in Countries Not Yet Affected by Outbreak

IHS Markit launched its COVID–19 Country Vulnerability Index this week, ranking countries' capacity to deal with the virus outbreak today as well as those expected to be exposed in the coming weeks and months.

The new index weighs demographics, economic vulnerability, health care capacity and state preparedness data, as well a country's prior experience with pandemics such as SARS or Ebola and found vulnerability may be the highest in countries not yet affected by the outbreak.

“As the COVID–19 pandemic continues to spread, it is critical that governments and firms leverage rigorous data-driven tools to better anticipate and analyze risks to personnel, assets and business,” says Zbyszko Tabernacki, senior vice president, Economics and Country Risk, IHS Markit. “The COVID–19 Country Vulnerability Index brings together data and expertise from 200 economists, country risk analysts and life sciences experts, to help organizations anticipate emerging risks due to the COVID-19 outbreak around the world.”

Vulnerability among large, developed countries, including Japan, Italy and Spain results primarily from demographic variables including percent of population living in dense urban areas and particular age group structures that trend towards elderly populations. At the same time, risk is mitigated in most developed countries by strong healthcare sectors and well organized centralized crisis response infrastructures.

According to the index, some smaller developed economies like Malta, Ireland and Singapore have high levels of economic vulnerability due to a combination of trade openness, external debt as share of GDP and self-employment as a share of overall employment, which are all exacerbated by the global slowdown associated with the impact of the outbreak on global economic activity.

States like Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya with chronic deficits in state capacity are particularly vulnerable due to the inability to coordinate cohesive and effective responses to the crisis. In turn, systemic deficits in healthcare infrastructure like the number of available hospital beds in intensive care units for treating those infected by the virus and high historical fatality rates from pneumonia make countries like the Central African Republic, Guinea, and Sierra Leone highly vulnerable as well.

The index ranks 178 countries and territories on a scale from 0 to 1, with 1 representing the highest vulnerability.

The Index weightings are configurable by users to enable modeling and customized scenarios, and the resulting data can be analyzed by country, by region, and in both absolute and relative terms.

IHS Markit State Capacity Index with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in select countries, 30 March (Graphic: Business Wire)

Spokesmen told SCMR that given the unprecedented nature of the situation, IHS Markit plans to regularly maintain and improve on “the underlying” methodology of accurate and actionable data and analysis.

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