Global life expectancy decreased between 2019 to 2021 due to deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the results of a new study.
The research published in The Lancet featured updates from the Global Burden of Disease Study and showed that global average life expectancy declined by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2021. The study began in the 1990s and this is the first time that a decline in life expectancy has been documented as opposed to a steady overall rise.
“For adults worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a more profound impact than any event seen in half a century, including conflicts and natural disasters,” says co-first author Dr. Austin E. Schumacher, Acting Assistant Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the study.
The researchers estimated that 15.9 million people died from Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021 worldwide who would have been alive if it were not for the pandemic. 5.9 million of these were recorded in 2020 and just under 10 million in 2021.
However, the pandemic did not affect mortality equally all over the globe. Eighty countries had mortality rates in excess of 150 per 100,000 people, per year during one or more years of the pandemic, with the highest rates being Peru in 2020 (413 people per 100,000) and Bulgaria in 2021 (697.5 people per 100,000).
“Life expectancy declined in 84% of countries and territories during this pandemic, demonstrating the devastating potential impacts of novel pathogens,” said Schumacher.
There was however, some good news from the report. There were a few countries where life expectancy increased during the early years of the pandemic from 2019-2021, including Australia, New Zealand and China. All of these countries had lower numbers of Covid-19 infections than many other parts of the world during that time, although the report did not suggest this as a cause.