20.5 million years of life may have been lost to Covid, study
Shafaq News/ A new study discovered that more than 20.5 million years of life may have been lost to the coronavirus pandemic in the world, according to a new study that exposes the fallacy that those who die would have soon done so even if they had not caught Covid-19.
The Guardian reported the results of the study saying it shows the coronavirus has taken a significantly greater toll than flu.
According to the study, “Years of life lost (Yll) is the difference between an individual’s age at death and their life expectancy. Men have fared substantially worse than women – their years of life lost were 44% higher. Even though it is older people who are most at risk of dying in richer countries, the greatest number of years of life lost was among people between the ages of 55 and 75.
Counting deaths can give the wrong idea of the impact of Covid-19, say the authors of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“Several policy responses (or non-responses) have been motivated with the argument that Covid-19 is mostly killing individuals who, even in the absence of Covid-19, would have had few life years remaining,” writes Héctor Pifarré i Arolas of the Centre for Research in Health and Economics at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, and international colleagues in the study.
The Guardian stated that the Study found In the UK about 833,874 years of life were lost to the pandemic – an average of 11.4 per person (11.5 for men and 10.8 for women). In Spain, 572,567 years of life had been lost, an average of 11.24. In Peru, 764,856 lives had been lost, an average per person of 20.2.
The researchers looked at heart disease, which also causes premature death. They found that more years were lost to heart disease than to Covid-19. However, the toll of excess deaths in countries – the total increase in deaths from year to year – masked an increase in deaths from heart disease also.
They found that a larger proportion of Yll in wealthier countries was from older people, but in low and middle-income countries, the greatest loss of years of life was from individuals who died at 55 or younger.
Men were disproportionately likely to die from Covid before their time than women. The authors say the discrepancy could justify policies focused on supporting men’s health. Eliminating the gender gap would require a 34% reduction in male deaths, they write. “This suggests that gender-specific policies might be equally well justified as those based on age,” they say.
The researchers took into account more than 1,279,866 deaths in 81 countries, as well as life expectancy data and projections for total deaths of Covid-19 by country. They estimate that in total, 20,507,518 years of life may have been lost due to Covid-19 in the 81 countries included in the study – an average of 16 years for each individual death. Of the total years of life lost, 44.9% appears to have occurred in individuals between 55 and 75 years of age, 30.2% in individuals younger than 55, and 25% in those older than 75.
