The Lowy Instittue has ranked Sri Lanka among the top ten countries won the COVID19 pandemic index.

New Zealand has emerged as the world leader in controlling COVID-19 with Australia coming in the 8th spot in the ranking put out by the Australian think tank.

The period examined spans the 36 weeks that followed every country’s hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19, using data available to 9 January 2021. Fourteen-day rolling averages of new daily figures were calculated for the following indicators:

Confirmed cases

Confirmed deaths

Confirmed cases per million people

Confirmed deaths per million people

Confirmed cases as a proportion of tests

Tests per thousand people

"An average across those indicators was then calculated for individual countries in each period and normalised to produce a score from 0 (worst performing) to 100 (best performing). Collectively, these indicators point to how well or poorly countries have managed the pandemic in the 36 weeks that followed their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19," the instutute said.

However, Ukraine, with which Sri Lanka commenced a "pilot tourism" project, is among the 10 worst countries in terms of pandemic response.