MANILA— A COVID-19 resilience ranking which tagged the Philippines as the "worst place to be" during the pandemic only considered about a quarter of the total number of countries in the world, Malacañang said on Thursday.

The Philippines was at the bottom of Bloomberg’s COVID Resilience Ranking among 53 countries this month, based on 12 data points related to virus containment, the economy, and opening up.

"Mapapansin n’yo po ang Bloomberg, 194 countries, 53 lang po ang ini-survey," said Palace spokesman Harry Roque.

"Kaya po maintindihan ng lahat, kapag tayo po ay huli, hindi naman ibig sabihin huli sa buong mundo. Huli lang tayo sa mga pinag-aralan ng Bloomberg," he said in a press briefing.

(You'll notice that out of 194 countries, Bloomberg only surveyed 53. Everyone should understand that when we come last, it does not mean we are last in the whole world. We are just last among those studied by Bloomberg.)

Bloomberg said the Philippines only had a vaccine coverage rate of 20 percent, among the lowest of those ranked. It is also "engaged in one of the most stringent lockdowns" and its borders remain sealed to visitors.

The Philippines "underperforms too" on COVID-19 containment, and "had the second-worst positive test rate" in the ranking at 27 percent, only better than Mexico, said Bloomberg.

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Roque said that though richer countries previously "hoarded" COVID-19 vaccines, the Philippines now has enough supply and is expected to catch up with other nations.

The Malacañang spokesman said coronavirus infections have gone down from a high of 20,000 new cases daily. He argued this shows the Philippine strategy is working.

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"Siguro where we can agree is ang tine-test nila (Bloomberg), economic resilience… Every time kasi tayo nagla-lockdown, nagsasara ang ekonomiya at wala pong economic resilience," Roque said.

(Perhaps where we can agree is they are testing economic resilience. Every time we go on lockdown, the economy closes and there is no economic resilience.)

"In that sense we agree, na siguro dapat talagang we need to learn to live with the virus at hindi solusyon talaga ang lockdown," he added.

("In that sense we agree, perhaps we need to learn to live with the virus and lockdown is not really the solution.)

NEDA Secretary Karl Chua said the Bloomberg ranking is a "work in progress" that looks at policy shifts. He noted that the Philippines this month started testing out a new COVID-19 alert system with granular lockdowns to spur business activity.

"Iyan po ‘yong kailangan nating gawin, tuloy nating i-evaluate ang policies natin para mabuksan pa lalo ‘yong ating ekonomiya," he said.

(That is what we need to do, continue evaluating our policies to further open our economy.)

The Philippines has tallied some 2.5 million overall coronavirus cases with about 38,000 deaths.

At least 21 million of the country's 109 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far.