It is the largest study of its kind to date: Researchers at Oxford University have determined in 37 countries the toll people had to pay to the corona pandemic.
The corona pandemic has now claimed more than five million deaths worldwide, as can be seen from. What this means in terms of lost life is calculated by researchers led by Oxford University in a study that has now been published in the (BMJ). Accordingly, more than 28 million years of life were lost in 2020 alone, which was shaped by the global spread of the coronavirus.
Life expectancy has not fallen in only six countries
The international study examined the development of life expectancy in 37 wealthier countries for which the researchers believe reliable data are available,. The years of life lost were also considered, a key figure that measures the extent of premature mortality among the dead by comparing the age of the deceased with their life expectancy.
According to the newspaper, the authors said the measure is more precise in calculating the impact of the pandemic than, for example, looking at excess deaths, which does not distinguish between the death of a 17-year-old and that of a 70-year-old. The researchers used life expectancy between 2005 and 2019 as a benchmark for their study. Their approach makes the study the most detailed assessment of the effects of Covid-19 to date.
While life expectancy declined significantly in most countries, the number of years lost to premature deaths skyrocketed. The actual number of deaths is likely to be even higher, it said, as most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America were excluded from the study due to a lack of data.
The results had “shocked” him and his team, reported study leader Nazrul Islam from the Nuffield Department of Population Health at Oxford University, according to the Guardian. “We had to stop at one point to go through it all.” Islam itself lost relatives and colleagues to Covid-19, but although he knows the effects of the disease from personal experience, the numbers surprised him. “Nothing in my life has shocked me as much as the pandemic,” he said.
Life expectancy fell most in 2020, according to reports, in Russia, where men lost 2.33 years and women 2.14 years. In second place was the United States (men 2.27, women 1.61) followed by Bulgaria, Lithuania, Chile and Spain.
Life expectancy increased in 2020 only in New Zealand, Taiwan and Norway; in Denmark, Iceland and South Korea it remained unchanged. Between 2005 and 2019, however, life expectancy for men and women increased in all of the countries studied.
Death numbers in 2021 even higher
According to data from the (WHO), Johns Hopkins University and the, more people have already died from or with the involvement of Covid-19 this year than in the whole of 2020. There were a total of around 1.9 million people worldwide, meanwhile more than 3 million deaths have been added. This shows that the number of years of life lost as a result of the pandemic has increased disproportionately after the turn of the year and will be even more “shocking” in the end, as study leader Nazrul Islam reports on the numbers for 2020 ..
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Source From: Stern
