Covid-19 has had an impact on adults around the world (Al Jazeera)
Life expectancy, which had been increasing for decades around the world, suddenly declined in 2020 and 2021 in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal “The Lancet.”
The study indicated that life expectancy decreased during these two years in 84% of about 200 countries and regions that the researchers studied, that is, in almost the entire world.
The data studied by the researchers showed that life expectancy decreased to more than a year and a half per person on average (1.6 years) in the years 2020 and 2021.
This translated into an increase in deaths of 15.9 million cases, slightly more than the approximately 15 million deaths indicated by the World Health Organization.
“Covid-19 has had an impact on adults around the world that has not been recorded for half a century, even during wars and natural disasters,” said the study’s lead author, researcher Austin Schumacher.
But this type of study makes it difficult to distinguish between deaths directly related to Covid-19 and those resulting from the effects of health restrictions imposed to contain the pandemic.
On the other hand, the results showed that the infant mortality rate continued to decline during the period covered by the study.
Among children under the age of five, 2021 recorded a decrease in the number of deaths by about 500,000 compared to 2019 numbers.
Researcher Hamwi Hamwi Keo confirmed that the results constitute “exceptional progress,” noting that the current priority should be given to the issue of avoiding “the next epidemic by reducing the large health-related gaps between countries.”
Source: French