Researchers say it's no surprise that Finland has retained the top position once again, as the Nordic country has always ranked highly when it comes to mutual trust.
Trust is recognized as one of the major factors that helped to protect people during the pandemic, as well as confidence in governments.
For instance, Brazil's death rate was significantly higher than Singapore's, a fact the report put partially down to the difference in public trust in the governments of each country.
It also notes that the Americas and Europe had much higher Covid-19 fatalities than East Asia, Australasia, and Africa.

The report suggests that the average age of a country's population, whether it's an island, and its proximity to other highly-infected countries were contributing factors in the disparity between death rates globally.
Intriguingly, cultural differences such as whether the head of government was a woman, are also noted as significant considerations when measuring the success of Covid-19 strategies, along with income inequality and knowledge gained from previous epidemics.
"The East Asian experience shows that stringent government policies not only control Covid-19 effectively, but also buffer the negative impact of daily infections on people's happiness," said report contributor professor Shun Wang of the Korea Development Institute.
While successful vaccine rollouts in various countries have provided a much-needed boost to many, lockdowns, social distancing, face coverings and travel restrictions are part and parcel of living with the virus, and that's not even taking the economic implications into account.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the World Happiness Report 2021 also found that lockdowns and social distancing impacted workforce wellbeing tremendously.
According to the data collected, those unable to work due to furlough or redundancy who said they were lonely at the start of the pandemic became 43% less happy than those who did not feel lonely to begin with.
"My previous research showed how happy workers are 13% more productive," said professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, another contributor to the report.
"This paper proves that happiness is not driven by pay, and that the social connections and a sense of identity are more important.
"These findings point towards a 'hybrid' future of work, with a balance between office life and working from home to maintain social connections while ensuring flexibility for workers."
Of the 149 countries featured on the report, Afghanistan was ranked the most unhappy once again, followed by Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Botswana.
Those at the bottom of the list were mainly underdeveloped countries where issues such as political and armed conflicts are prevalent, or have been in recent times.
"This has been a very challenging year, but the early data also show some notable signs of resilience in feelings of social connection and life evaluations" says report contributor professor Lara Aknin of Simon Fraser University.


World's happiest countries 2021
1. Finland
2. Iceland
3. Denmark
4. Switzerland
5. Netherlands
6. Sweden
7. Germany
8. Norway
9. New Zealand
10. Austria
11. Israel
12. Australia
13. Ireland
14. United States
15. Canada
16. Czech Republic
17. Belgium
18. United Kingdom
19. China
20. France

For the fourth year running, Finland again has come out on top in the annual list powered by data from the Gallup World Poll, with Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands following in second, third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.
While the United States moved up from 18th to 14th place and the United Kingdom dropped from 13th to 18th, Australia held its 12th place position.

Now I wonder where Nigeria is located on the list

If not for the North....

illicit:
If not for the North....

as in ehhh

illicit:
If not for the North....

If not for Buhari

There was a time Nigeria was ranked the happiest on earth after a survey of some countries, the North was still part of Nigeria then o