Covid-19: ‘Pandemic decreased life expectancy by most since World War II’
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Life expectancy of those patients who are believed to have recovered from the adverse effects of Covid-19 may have been cut short, new research revealed on Monday.
There have been reports that Covid-19 survivors have developed new co-morbidities in many countries.
The pandemic has reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since World War II, according to a study published by the University of Oxford, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years, media reports said.
According to reports, life expectancy decreased by more than six months compared with 2019 in 22 of the 29 countries analyzed in the study, which spanned Europe, the United States, and Chile.
Researchers said most life expectancy reductions across different countries could be linked to official Covid-19 deaths.
Nearly 232 million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) worldwide and 4.76 million people have died so far. Besides, 209 million have recovered.
“The fact that our results highlight such a large impact that is directly attributable to Covid-19 shows how devastating a shock it has been for many countries,” said Dr. Ridhi Kashyap, co-lead author of the research paper, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Importantly, life expectancy for men dropped more than in cases of women in most countries, with the largest decline noticed in American men, whose life expectancy dropped by 2.2 years relative to 2019.
The researchers said men had more than a year of their lives lost in 15 countries, compared to women in 11 countries, nullifying the progress on mortality made in the previous 5.6 years.
In the United States, the rise in mortality was mainly among those of working age and those under 60 years, while in Europe deaths among people aged over 60 contributed more significantly to the increase in mortality.
The researchers appealed to the countries, including low- and middle-income nations, to make mortality data available for further studies.
