How have you felt over the past year?
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute has released a 鈥�," which聽compares the performance of 15 similar nations in protecting the health and prosperity of their citizens during the pandemic. Those with higher scores have felt more misery, including from the spread of sickness and death from the disease itself, slow or poor responses by government, and economic decline.
Canada took the number聽11 spot聽out of the 15 countries measured, which report authors note indicates聽a "relatively poor performance in terms of reducing the misery of the pandemic.
"Relative to its peers, Canada gets a 'C'聽in terms of its overall performance."
The ranking is based on data from across three main categories that capture the disease impact,聽management response, and economic impact of each nation by measuring performance on 16 key metrics. Measures include the number of infections, COVID-related deaths, lockdown stringency, vaccination rates, testing capacity, changes in GDP, unemployment, public debt, and more.
The news is not all bad for Canada, however: "When it comes to limiting disease misery, the country places sixth out of 15 countries measured, receiving a 'B'聽in this category, including the spread of cases and deaths."
But in terms of misery caused by government response to the pandemic, Canada ranked 14th out of 15 or a聽鈥淒鈥� letter-grade 鈥� only the Netherlands had聽a worse response performance.
And while聽Canada ranked 13th in economic performance, the COVID Misery Index suggests that this "country鈥檚 inefficient approach to the virus was more costly than in other countries." Canada's聽poor economic result was given another聽鈥淒鈥� and is聽"the single greatest contributor to overall misery in Canada."
鈥淲hile Canada was spared the worst ravages of the disease, our response to it has brought significant misery, largely attributable to quite strong restrictions in behaviour and a lagging vaccination program,鈥� writes Audas.聽鈥淭he economic misery has been severe, and the projections are that Canadian taxpayers will be paying this bill for some time to come.鈥�
In contrast to Canada, Norway had the best overall performance according to the COVID Misery Index. "By combatting the virus efficiently, Norway succeeded in protecting the health and overall wellbeing of its citizens."
Report authors add that the Scandinavian country聽also topped聽the list of countries in terms of economic performance.聽
