E-Paper
In 31 countries, 28mn years of lives lost in Covid year
At least 28 million years of life were lost in 31 rich countries last year, a study published in the journal BMJ recently has found, offering a new perspective on the human cost of the Covid-19 pandemic that has caused at least 5 million reported fatalities till now
At least 28 million years of life were lost in 31 rich countries last year, a study published in the journal BMJ recently has found, offering a new perspective on the human cost of the Covid-19 pandemic that has caused at least 5 million reported fatalities till now.
Known deaths are certain to be an undercount and researchers expect the true toll to be two-to-four times higher. The new study, by researchers from Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, now shows that in 31 of the 37 nations they analysed, life expectancy has plummeted, giving a better picture of the magnitude of premature deaths. India was not among the countries covered by the study
“Reduction in life expectancy in men and women was observed in all countries studied except New Zealand, Taiwan, and Norway, where there was a gain in life expectancy in 2020... The highest reduction in life expectancy was observed in Russia (men: −2.33, women: −2.14) and the United States (men: −2.27; women: −1.61)...” the authors wrote.
In Denmark, Iceland and South Korea, life expectancy levels remained constant. The countries where it fell, apart from Russia and US, included Bulgaria, Lithuania, Spain, Italy, Belgium, England and Wales, Sweden, France Israel and Germany.
The change in life expectancy was based on the expected life expectancy in 2020 as per historical trends in the 2005-19 period, and what was recorded in reality. The drop in life expectancy was also portrayed as excess years of life lost (YLL) – which takes into the total years that people who die prematurely would have otherwise lived, a number that came to 28 million in the 31 countries.
“Our findings of a comparable or lower-than-expected YLL (years of life lost) in Taiwan, New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and South Korea underscore the importance of successful viral suppression and elimination policies, including targeted and population based public health policy interventions,” the authors wrote.
“As many of the effects of the pandemic might take a longer time frame to have a measurable effect on human lives, continuous and timely monitoring of excess YLL would help identify the sources of excess mortality and excess YLL in population subgroups,” they added.
Nazrul Islam, research fellow at University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health, and one of the authors of the study, said in a tweet: “Overall, excess years of life lost to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 were more than five times higher (2,510 per 100,000) than those associated with the seasonal influenza flu epidemic in 2015 (458 per 100,000)”.
In Russia, Bulgaria, Lithuania and the US, the excess YLL in people younger than the age of 65 was relatively higher than in all other countries, which means that a disproportionately larger number of younger people was affected in these countries.
In all countries, the drop in life expectancy was higher in men than women.
The report comes weeks after another Oxford University centre, the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, analysed data from 29 countries spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile and found and found that the drop in life expectancy was the biggest since the second World War in several Western European countries.
The authors of the latest study make a case of reliable data. “Our study was restricted to countries with reliable data for the whole study period of 2000-20. Therefore, we did not include most countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America,” they wrote.
