Quantifying holistic capacity response and healthcare resilience in tackling COVID-19: Assessment of country capacity by MCDM

Abstract

The resilience of a country during the COVID-19 pandemic was determined based in whether it was holistically prepared and responsive. This resilience can only be identified through systematic data collection and analysis. Historical evidence-based response indicators have been proven to mitigate pandemics like COVID-19. However, most databases are outdated, requiring updating, derivation, and explicit interpretation to gain insight into the impact of COVID-19. Outdated databases do not show a country’s true preparedness and response capacity, therefore, it undermines pandemic threat. This study uses up-to-date evidence-based pandemic indictors to run a cross-country comparative analysis of COVID-19 preparedness, response capacity, and healthcare resilience. PROMETHEE—a multicriteria decision making (MCDM) technique—is used to quantify the strengths (positive) and weaknesses (negative) of each country’s COVID-19 responses, with full ranking (net) from best to least responsive. From 22 countries, South Korea obtained the highest net outranking value of 0.1945, indicating that it was the most resilient, while Mexico had the lowest (-0.1428). Although countries were underprepared, there was a robust response to the pandemic, especially in developing countries. This study demonstrates the performance and response capacity of 22 key countries to resist COVID-19, from which other countries can compare their statutory capacity ranking in order to learn/adopt the evidence-based responses of better performing countries to improve their resilience.