According to a study, the Corona crisis has caused life expectancy worldwide to fall more sharply than previously thought. According to a study by hundreds of researchers, average life expectancy worldwide fell by 1.6 years in the first two years of the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021.
For the study, scientists evaluated data from the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). “For adults around the world, the coronavirus pandemic had more serious consequences than any other event in half a century, including conflict and natural disasters,” said IHME researcher Austin Schumacher, a leading participant in the study.
“Destructive” effects of the virus visible
According to the assessment, life expectancy fell in 84 percent of the 204 countries and territories surveyed in 2020/2021. This makes the ‘destructive’ effects of new viruses clear, the researchers report in the journal ‘The Lancet’.
In the first two Corona years, excess mortality, i.e. the difference between the actual number of deaths and the number of deaths that would have been expected without a pandemic, amounted to 15.9 million deaths worldwide, according to the IHME study. The World Health Organization previously assumed that excess mortality would be one million lower.
According to the current research, the death rate for men and boys aged 15 and over increased by 22 percent in 2020/2021 and by 17 percent for women and girls. The places where life expectancy fell the most during the Corona years include Peru, Bolivia and Mexico City.
Mortality among children even fell
The decline in life expectancy is all the more striking because the global average lifespan has steadily increased in recent decades. In contrast to adults, mortality among small children under the age of five continued to decline during the Corona years, the IHME analysis shows. Accordingly, approximately half a million fewer small children died worldwide in 2021 than in 2019.
In the longer term, despite the setback of Corona, people are still living significantly longer than before. While the global average life expectancy was 49 years in 1950, it was 72 years in 2021, the IHME researchers explained.
However, humanity must prepare for “the next pandemic” and combat “the major healthcare inequalities between countries,” warns IHME researcher Hmwe Hmwe Kyu.
Source: Krone
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