WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- The United States has seen a sharp decline in reputation among its key allies and partners, reaching record lows, partly because of the country's bad handling of the pandemic, according to a new survey.

Some close allies of the United States, including Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada and Australia, have shown record lows in the ratings for the country in the past two decades, according to a 13-nation survey published by Pew Research Center on Tuesday.

Specifically, as low as 26 percent of the surveyed group in Germany have a favorable view of the United States, in stark contrast to 78 percent in the year 2000. Relatively more people, 41 percent, in Britain and Japan rate the country positively, dropping from 83 percent and 77 percent in 2000 respectively. The other three countries see similar percentages in support of the superpower, 31 percent in France, 33 percent in Australia and 35 percent in Canada, the survey said.

Part of the sharp decline over the past year is linked to the poor response of the United States to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the 13 nations in the survey, a median of only 15 percent praised the country's dealing with the virus, according to the survey.

The United States is the worst-hit country in the pandemic, with 6,606,998 confirmed cases and 195,962 deaths caused by the disease as of Wednesday, according to data published by the Coronavirus Resource Center of Johns Hopkins University.