The corona pandemic is likely to affect people even more severely than previously thought. One population group is particularly affected.
The world is in the second year of the corona pandemic. Since its discovery, the Covid-19 virus has had a massive impact on everyday private and professional life as well as public life. Schools had to be closed again and again in the last two years and old people’s homes had to be cordoned off for visitors. But then came the corona vaccination campaign and although the number of infections is still high in many regions such as Baden-Württemberg *, the prospect of an immunized population gave rise to hope. As echo24.de * now reports, however, the coronavirus seems to have another worrying effect on people.
The University of Oxford has now carried out a study into the extent to which the virus has an impact on life expectancy and the results are terrifying. According to this, life expectancy fell in 2020 in 27 of 29 countries examined. With many European countries, Chile and China. José Manuel Aburto, co-author of the study, told the International Journal of Epidemiology : “Both women and men in Chile, England / Wales, Belgium, Spain and Slovenia recorded losses of more than a full year in life expectancy.” For Germany the Federal Statistical Office stated that mortality had increased compared to 2019, especially for men and women over 75 years of age.
Coronavirus: Life expectancy “like last time in World War II” has fallen
This number does not sound too dramatic at first, but the researcher makes it clear later that such a decline in life expectancy in just one year was last observed during the Second World War. In addition, a peculiarity is evident: life expectancy in the corona pandemic has decreased much more significantly for men than for women. There are also geographical differences.
While in Europe the mortality rate among the over 60-year-olds has increased in particular, in the USA people in the “working age under 60 years” are particularly affected by the increased mortality in connection with the coronavirus, said co-author Ridhi Kashyap also in International Journal of Epidemiology. Accordingly, the life expectancy of men in the USA decreased by 2.2 years in 2020 compared to 2019.
Corona pandemic: will life expectancy still be influenced by Covid-19 in the future?
Overall, the authors of the study on life expectancy in the corona pandemic are of the opinion that the scars that Covid-19 has left on the general health of the population could continue for a while. The after-effects of Long Covid Syndrome should not be ignored. In addition, the health systems were overloaded during the pandemic. That is why other diseases were often treated too late.
Definition of “life expectancy”
Life expectancy is the age a newborn baby is likely to reach if the death rate continues to develop as it did when it was born. According to the Federal Statistical Office, life expectancy in Germany in August 2021 was 78.6 years for boys and 83.4 years for girls. It was also known that in 2020 mortality increased compared to 2019, especially for men and women over the age of 75.
In general, the German Federal Government continues to rely on corona vaccinations in order to curb this terrifying trend and bring the pandemic under control as quickly as possible. Because many experts and politicians such as Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann now describe the spread of the virus as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” *.
The so-called 2G rule was therefore anchored in the current Corona regulation of the Southwest *, which entails many restrictions for unvaccinated people. The Oxford study does not reveal to what extent these measures can influence life expectancy in Germany. * echo24.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
List of rubric lists: © dpa / archiv
