E-Paper
Over 20 million years of life lost to Covid-19: Study | Here are some of the key findings
On average, Covid-19 took 16 years from each fatality and the majority of those years were from individuals with a significant remaining life expectancy.
Over 20 million years of life have been lost to the ongoing coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic globally, according to a new study aimed at understanding the mortality impact of the viral infection. Researchers analysed the premature mortality impact of Covid-19 by calculating the number of years of life lost (YLL) to the disease across 81 countries covering over 1.2 million deaths.
They noted that the results of the study, published in the scientific journal Nature, confirm the “large mortality impact of Covid-19 among the elderly” and “call for heightened awareness in devising policies that protect vulnerable demographics losing the largest number of life-years.”
Here are some of the key findings from the study:
While the mortality rate for Covid-19 has been higher in the elderly, only a fraction of the years of life lost can be attributed to the individuals in the oldest age brackets. The researchers found that three-quarters of the YLL resulted from deaths in people below the age of 75 and almost a third from deaths below the age of 55. “Globally, 44.9% of the total YLL can be attributed to the deaths of individuals between 55 and 75 years old,” the study said.
On average, Covid-19 took 16 years from each fatality and the majority of those years were from individuals with a significant remaining life expectancy. In high-income countries, a large proportion of the YLL was found to be borne by the oldest group but the pattern changed for low- and mid-income countries, where a large fraction of the YLL was from individuals dying at 55 or younger.
The researchers also found gender disparity in the mortality rate for Covid-19 as well as in absolute years of life lost. After studying the sample of countries where death counts by gender are available, they concluded that men have lost 44 per cent more years to the pandemic than women. A higher average age-at-death of female Covid-19 deaths and, in terms of the absolute number, more male deaths than female deaths directly impacted the disparity.
According to the study, there are two key sources of potential bias to the results that operate in different directions. The researchers said the study might underestimate Covid-19 YLL rates due to an undercount of the total death. On the other hand, people dying from the infection may belong to an at-risk population whose remaining life expectancy is shorter than the average person’s remaining life expectancy, and, consequently, the estimate of the total YLL due to Covid-19 may be an overestimate.
