Coronavirus pandemic reduced average life expectancy worldwide by a year and a half

He came to change many aspects of our lives and as everything shows changed the , since according to the study published today Tuesday (12.3.2024) in the Lancet scientific journal. According to the study data, the average life expectancy, which has not ceased to increase for decades around the world, declined sharply in 2020 and 2021, when the pandemic of the new coronavirus had reached its peak. Life expectancy shrunk at this time in the vast majority (84%) of over 200 countries and regions examined by researchers, in other words almost all over the planet. On average, based on the total data examined, life expectancy decreased by over a year and a half per capita in 2020-2021 (–1.6 year). This translates into an excess mortality of 15.9 million deaths, much higher than around 15 million, the World Health Organization reference number (WHO). “In terms of adults worldwide, COVID’s pandemic has had an impact that has not been comparable for half a century, even if wars and natural disasters are taken into account,” stresses the main author of this study, Austin Schumacher of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). However, this type of study does not allow a clear distinction to be made between the deaths directly due to the disease and those due to its consequences and the restrictions applied to limit the spread of the pandemic. In other fields, the study brings rather good news: infant mortality continued to decrease in the period under consideration. Among children under five, 500,000 fewer deaths were recorded in 2021 than in 2019. Hmue Hmue Kew, another IHME researcher, refers to “extreme progress” referring to this fact, while she considers that priority should now be given to preventing “the next pandemic” and “the reduction of major inequalities from one country to another in terms of health”.