The pandemic has shortened our lives. We already know by how much
The pandemic is behind us, but its impact on our health will remain with us for years. Many wondered what effects the disease and isolation would have in the future. Now we know and the data is not optimistic.
Covid-19 is still with us and will not disappear anytime soon. Both the disease and the way to counteract it have had an irreversible impact on our psychological and mental health. Scientists suspected it would backfire negatively on life expectancy, but they didn’t think it would be such a drastic change. Recall that Covid-19 is responsible for almost 16 million excess deaths worldwide.
Will the pandemic make us live shorter?
On Tuesday, a study on life expectancy and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic appeared in the scientific journal The Lancet. The work uses historical data and current estimates and covers 204 countries and territories, including 811 locations with a rank lower than a country. The data used in the study comes from the years 1950-2021.
The study shows that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused The average life expectancy of people around the world fell by 1.6 years in the first two years of the pandemic, which represents a more dramatic decline than previously thought. This marked a sharp turn in the decades-long rise in global life expectancy, according to hundreds of researchers reviewing data for the U.S. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
Austin Schumacher of IHME noted that in 2020-2021, life expectancy decreased in 84 percent of the 204 countries and territories analyzed, which “shows the devastating potential impact” of new viruses. Scientists estimate that during this time, the death rate for people over 15 years of age increased by 22 percent for men and 17 percent for women.
It is worth mentioning that this is the first decline in life expectancy since 1950. Since the post-war period, this value has increased from 49 to 72 years.
