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The COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted in the loss of 20 million years of life worldwide, a new study estimates. On average, each person who died lost 16 years of life.
Researchers in the study – from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany – analyzed data from more than 1.2 million people in 81 countries that have so far died from COVID-19. (The researchers used information from a database of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths known as COVerAge-DB, which includes data from 112 countries. The analysis included all countries with at least one death from COVID-19 as of January 6, 2021.) Then they calculated the “years of life lost,” or the difference between a person’s age at death and his life expectancy, using data on life expectancy in these countries.
Overall, more than 20.5 million years of life have been lost to COVID-19 in these countries alone.
“From a public health perspective, years of life lost are crucial as they assess how many lives have been cut short for populations affected by the disease,” the authors wrote in their article, published Thursday, February 18. in the newspaper. Scientific reports.
Related: Life expectancy in the United States drops dramatically due to COVID-19
Only a quarter of those years of life lost came from people over the age of 75. Almost half of the years of life have been lost by people aged 55 to 75 and almost a third by people under 55. Among countries where death counts sex was available, years of life lost were 44% higher for men than women, according to the authors.
The study also found that in countries with high COVID-19 cases, the years of life lost due to COVID-19 were two to nine times greater than the years of life lost due to influenza during a typical flu season.
The researchers note that their study had significant limitations. Since many countries are likely to underreport deaths from COVID-19, researchers’ calculation of the total number of years of life lost may be an underestimate. On the flip side, people who die from COVID-19 may tend to have a shorter life expectancy than the average person, which could lead to an overestimation of years of life lost. The study also didn’t look at years of life lost in all 195 countries around the world, meaning the global toll could be even higher.
Finally, the study only looked at premature deaths and did not examine the potential health burden of illness in survivors, or “years lived with disability” due to the illness. More research is needed on the long-term health effects of COVID-19 and how often they occur, they said.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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