By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
More than 28 million years of life were lost in 2020 in 31 countries, according to
a studypublished this week in the peer-reviewed
BMJjournal.TheUnited States was among the countries with the highest number of yearsof life lost. Israel was among the countries with the least number ofyears lost, ranking at number nine.The
purpose of the study, which was led by Prof. Nazrul Islam in the United Kingdom, was to estimate the changes in life expectancy and years of life lost in 2020 associated with the COVID-19 crisis.
Islamlooked at 37 countries with upper-middle and high incomes, where hefelt that the data would be complete and reliable. The reduction in life expectancy was calculated based on the difference between observed andexpected life expectancy in 2020, using the Lee-Carter model. Excessyears were based on the same calculation but using the World Health
Organization standard life table.“Life expectancy... is an indication of how long, on average, people can expect to survive if the age specific mortality rates remain constant for the remainder of their life,” the report said. “Years of life lost takes into account the age of distributions of mortality by giving greater weights to deaths that occur at younger ages.”The countries in which life expectancy declined the most were Russia, the United States and Bulgaria. Islam explained that this appears to have been largely affected by a high number of deaths in the younger population, especially among people below 65 years of age.The highest excess years of life lost per 100,000 population were seen in Bulgaria, Russia, Lithuania, the United States and Poland.
COVID-19 is seen in a blood vessel (Illustrative). (credit: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY)In
total, 31 countries lost 222 million years of life, which is 28.1
million more than expected. More years were lost by men than women,
according to the study. Moreover, the years of life lost to COVID were
more than five times higher than those lost to the flu in 2015, a season
that was considered moderately severe.
There were only three countries in which
people actually lived longer: New Zealand, Taiwan and Norway. In three
countries there was no change in life expectancy: Denmark, Iceland and
South Korea.These six countries also did not have higher than expected years of life lost, the study showed.Islam
said, “Healthcare surely is a critical factor” in why some countries’
life expectancy declined more than others or lost more years of life,
but “so is the capacity to respond to emergencies such as the pandemic,
and equity in accessing the healthcare services.”He
said the US, in particular, “is known to have widespread inequalities
in healthcare accessibility, which might have contributed to such a huge
loss in 2020.”The study was, of course, conducted based on numbers from before vaccination. Israel, for example, started administering doses
to its most vulnerable population only at the end of December 2020. As
such, the statistics might look even more different this year, based on
which countries were able to prevent COVID-19 deaths through
inoculation.The
study shows that the pandemic and the policy measures countries took to
stop the spread of the virus have had implications for mortality beyond
deaths from COVID-19.
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