摘要
In this study, we generally postulate that there are two groups of countries that are committed to medical-related scientific and technological knowledge continuity which is useful for preventive measures during an epidemic crisis. The first group comprises countries that are endowed with resistant capability from the scientific research point of view. The second group comprises nations endowed with resilient capability to develop timely vaccine candidates and achieve mass vaccination for lasting immunity against the virus. This study referred to publishing and patenting data for two scientific research categories that are used as proxies for resistant and resilient scientific capabilities. We deployed cumulativeness index to examine the persistency of a nation in advancing the two capabilities. Our analysis brought us to an understanding that there are a few resistant nations (e.g. Taiwan and New Zealand) and their persistent research in public health coincided with their success in containing the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Countries such as the US and China are found resilient in our analysis. They pursued research in the field of experimental medicine—the crucial field in vaccine science—and their patenting records are evident. This study provided many imperative leads to understand what makes a nation “resilient” and is a significant step towards understanding the capabilities in deploying preventive measures. Therefore, it informs the policymakers about strategic capability positioning—as they put together a plan to accumulate science targeted for use as preventive knowledge in the future.