London, England, May 15, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Democratic nations tended to
fare better during the pandemic with fewer excess deaths than autocratic
nations, according to new analysis by Airfinity.
Today's analysis is being presented at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit
(https://copenhagendemocracysummit.com/2024/speakers/3443/rasmus-bech-hansen) by
Airfinity's CEO and founder Rasmus Bech Hansen. It shows that for the vast
majority of countries, strong democratic government was a key predictor of lower
excess deaths during the pandemic. The analysis reveals China and Saudi Arabia
were key outliers in their approach and outcomes during the pandemic.
China, which followed a 'zero-COVID policy' had one of the lowest excess deaths
with 72 per 100k people. Saudi Arabia recorded 158 deaths per 100k people, while
Russia had the highest with 943 deaths per 100k people. Denmark and Sweden had
the lowest excess deaths for democracies which did not have such stringent
lockdowns with 92 and 150 excess deaths per 100k people respectively.
Today's analysis found the most significant contributing factor to reducing
excess deaths was the speed at which high performing vaccines were rolled out.
Measuring associated factors by Pearson's correlation coefficient, it shows
vaccines had the greatest impact on reducing deaths but the strength of a
countries' democracy had a greater impact than healthcare expenditure.
Western democracies supported the development, production and rollout of highly
efficacious vaccines which was key to minimising deaths. However production
lagged behind China, which stepped in to play a greater role in supplying
vaccines to the rest of the world. Global vaccine production capacity has almost
tripled, to a peak of 14 billion doses a year in 2022, but much of this
investment is concentrated in Asia with dependencies on China.
Airfinity's CEO and founder Rasmus Bech Hansen says, "Our analysis shows that
Western democracies did better than non-democratic societies, simply put because
they developed better vaccines and were able to vaccinate their population
relatively fast. The innovation-ecosystem that Western economies have fostered
were critical in pandemic response".
"Today's assessment is not self congratulatory for Western nations. Not all
democracies did well and one reason could be low trust in governments which
leads to low voluntary vaccine uptake. Lock-downs are a failure of pandemic
preparedness. Although much has been learned democracies are still very far from
ready for a new pandemic. There is a need for better disease surveillance,
detection and higher levels of R&D and stronger institutional setup, potentially
through NATO".
"Democratic nations must be prepared for the next novel outbreak to come, both
so they can protect their own populations but also for the rest of the world to
turn to. The risk of inaction is that China and other autocratic countries will
step in to fill the void."
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