US, UK handled pandemic worse than other advanced nations: Poll
US, UK handled pandemic worse than other advanced nations: Poll
Washington : The US and the UK have handled the coronavirus pandemic worse than any other advanced nation, according to a new poll.
According to the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, only 46 per cent of Britons and 47 per cent of Americans think their government has coped well with the pandemic, far lower than Denmark with 95 per cent, Xinhua news agency reported.
They are the only two countries where a minority of people said the government had done well. The US ranked last, with 18 per cent saying that the country is more united now after the Covid-19 outbreak. That is a full 21 percentage points below the next lowest-ranking countries.
Germany and France had the second and third lowest score for feelings of unity, where 39 per cent of respondents said their country was more united than before. The US is the worst-hit country with 5,913,564 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 181,767 deaths, both tallies accounting for the highest in the world.
The UK has so far reported a total of 333,798 cases and 41,573 deaths. As of Saturday, the overall number of global coronavirus cases stood at 24,646,610, while the deaths increased to 835,730, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
The UK government has unveiled a series of measures to allow the safe mass rollout of a Covid-19 vaccine in the near future, the Department of Health and Social Care announced.
According to the announcement on Friday, the measures include reinforced safeguards to support the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to grant temporary authorization for the use of a new vaccine, provided it meets the highest safety and quality standards, reports Xinhua news agency.
It also includes expanding the trained workforce who can administer Covid-19 and flu vaccines. "We are making progress in developing Covid-19 vaccines which we hope will be important in saving lives, protecting healthcare workers and returning to normal in future," said Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England.