By IDSE News Staff
COVID-19 has caused a protracted shock to life expectancy levels, leading to global mortality changes unprecedented in the last 70 years, according to research from Oxford's Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.
Using data from 29 countries in Europe, as well as Chile and the United States, the researchers found life expectancy in 2021 remained lower than expected across all 29 countries had pre-pandemic trends continued (Nat Hum Behav 2022 Oct 17. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01450-3).
Previous global epidemics have seen fairly rapid bounce backs to life expectancy levels. But the scale and magnitude of COVID-19 on mortality confounds claims it has had no more impact than a flu-like illness, according to the statisticians. Life expectancy losses during recurring influenza epidemics over the second-half of the 20th century have been much smaller and less widespread than those seen in the pandemic.
A clear geographical divide appeared in 2021. The researchers found most countries in Western Europe experienced life expectancy bounce backs from the sharp losses in 2020. Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and France saw complete bounce backs, returning to pre-pandemic 2019 life expectancy levels. While England and Wales saw partial bounce backs from 2020 levels in 2021. Life expectancy in Scotland and Northern Ireland, however, remained at the same depressed level as 2020.
But Eastern Europe and the United States witnessed worsening or compounded losses in life expectancy over the same period. The scale of life expectancy losses during the COVID-19 pandemic in Eastern Europe were akin to those last seen at the break-up of the Soviet Union, according to the research.
This East-West divide in life expectancy during COVID-19 generally reflects bigger losses in countries that had lower pre-pandemic life expectancy levels. Bulgaria was the worst-hit of the countries studied, with a decline in life expectancy of nearly 43 months, over two years of the pandemic. According to the paper, 'Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia suffered substantially higher life expectancy deficits in 2021 compared to 2020, indicating a worsening mortality burden over the course of the pandemic.
In addition to pre-pandemic life expectancy, there appeared to be a vaccination effect, which followed the same East-West divide in Europe. Countries with higher proportions of fully vaccinated people experienced smaller life expectancy deficits. Older ages, especially those older than 80 who had seen the bulk of deaths in 2020, benefitted from vaccine protection and a decline in excess mortality in 2021.
“A notable shift between 2020 and 2021 was that the age patterns of excess mortality shifted in 2021 toward younger age groups, as vaccines began to protect the old,” said Ridhi Kashyap, PharmD, of Oxford.
But there were outliers, which had surprisingly high life expectancy losses, in spite of high vaccination rates, according to Jonas Schöley, PhD, of the Max Planck Institute. “Finer-grained details of the age prioritization of vaccine roll-out and the types of vaccines used may account for some of these differences, as well as correlations between vaccine uptake and compliance with non-pharmaceutical interventions or the overall health care system capacity,” he said.
The researchers said that countries with ineffective health responses could see a protracted health crisis and slower life expectancy improvements.
