Are we ready to deal with a global COVID-19 pandemic? Rethinking countries’ capacity based on the Global Health Security Index

BACKGROUND: The Global Health Security (GHS) Index has been developed to measure a country’s capacity to cope with a public health emergency; however, evidence for whether it corresponds to the response to a global pandemic is lacking. This study performed a multidimensional association analysis to explore the correlation between the GHS Index and COVID-19-associated morbidity, mortality, and disease increase rate (DIR) in 178 countries (regions). METHODS: The GHS Index and COVID-19 pandemic data – including total cases per million (TCPM), total deaths per million (TDPM), and daily growth rate – were extracted from online databases. The Spearman correlation coefficient was applied to describe the strength of the association between the GHS Index, sociological characteristics, and the epidemic situation of COVID-19. DIRs were compared, and the impact of the GHS Index on the DIR by the time of “lockdown” was visualized. RESULTS: The overall GHS Index was positively correlated with TCPM and TDPM, with coefficients of 0.34 and 0.41, respectively. Countries categorized into different GHS Indextiers had different DIRs before implementing lockdown measures. However, no significant difference was observed between countries in the middle and upper tiers after implementing lockdown measures. The correlation between GHS Index and DIR was positive five days before lockdown measures were taken, but it became negative 13 days later. CONCLUSIONS: The GHS Index has limited value in assessing a country's capacity to respond to a global pandemic. Nevertheless, it has potential value in determining the country’s ability to cope with a local epidemic situation.