20 million years of life lost in COVID-19

According to the COVID-19 pandemic, it claims more than 20 million years of life in 81 countries. New analysis of disease mortality Throughout all of 2020. It is an average of 16 years of lost life per death.

In severely affected areas such as the United States, Western Europe and Latin America, COVID-19, depending on the country, killed two to seven times as many as the typical year of seasonal influenza. This is despite the very rigorous public health efforts to stop the transmission of the disease. In these countries, pandemics also outnumber road deaths in the number of years of shortened lifespan, rivaling heart disease, the leading murderer in most countries.

The Years of Death Metric (YLL) measures early mortality by subtracting the age of death from the life expectancy of a particular country.

Adeline Lo

“YLL does not compromise on continuing to care about indicators such as death and cases, but it is a measure that can directly assess the loss of human potential based on the difference in how many lives have been lived. That’s it. ” Adeline Lo, Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and co-author of a new study.

COVID-19 killed the elderly disproportionately, but the young people were burdened with similar burdens and lost years of life. In many poor countries, people under the age of 55 make up the majority of the lost years.

And men have lost 44% more years with COVID-19 than women. More men are also dying from the disease.

Researchers also underestimate the number of deaths caused by COVID-19, so the actual number of years lost with COVID-19 may be up to three times higher on average than official records suggest. I found that.

Lo collaborated with a health economist Hector Pifare and Aroras Analysis was conducted by Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and Mikko Myrskylä of the According to Max Planck Institute in Germany.Writers Published their findings February 18th in Scientific Reports.

Scientists have analyzed a database covering 1.2 million deaths from COVID-19 and figures on life expectancy by country. For 19 countries, it was also possible to calculate mortality, a measure of the observed increase in mortality in 2020 compared to 2010. Some deaths may not be due correctly to COVID-19 and are therefore excluded from the official count. Death provides another estimate of the true mortality rate of the pandemic.

“One of the big misconceptions was that this wasn’t a pandemic that some people would make us believe. We believe we’ve dispelled this concept.”

Hector Pifare and Aroras

Data on premature death can be distorted by factors such as underlying health, and some people are more likely to die of illness. For this reason, the ratio of years lost between COVID-19 and other causes such as influenza and heart disease is a more accurate measure of premature death, as other illnesses are similarly exacerbated by existing health problems.

In Italy and the United States, two of the most devastated countries, COVID-19 lost at least 7.5 more lives than the typical year of seasonal flu. Approximately 20 countries lose at least twice the life expectancy of COVID-19 than the average influenza season.

Heart disease continues to be the leading cause of premature death in most countries, but Mexico and Peru have lost more years with COVID-19. Pandemics claim at least half the lifespan of heart disease in Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil.

“One of the big misconceptions was that this wasn’t a pandemic that some people made us believe. We believe we’ve dispelled this concept. It’s a big pandemic.” Said Aroras, the lead author of the new report. “And we had an extraordinary public health response to the pandemic. If we didn’t do anything, these numbers would be even worse.”

Some countries analyzed in this study do not face the serious burden of premature death from COVID-19. In countries such as Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, the number of cases is relatively small and the mortality rate is low. Other regions, such as Bolivia, Cameroon and El Salvador, have so far only shared data from the early stages of the pandemic, and more deaths may be reported over time. The new survey includes data up to January 6, 2021, which captured the entire first calendar year of the pandemic.

Other measurements of the pandemic’s true medical costs, such as the burden of disability faced by survivors, are not yet available. Further research on the long-term effects of COVID-19 infection and recovery is needed.

“Now that we have this information, let’s use it to identify where to prepare for the future to help vulnerable groups,” Lo says. “Now is the perfect time to integrate this information and not only end this pandemic, but prepare for a future pandemic.”