The World Health Organization (WHO) published a new report suggesting the COVID-19 pandemic undid a decade of life expectancy at birth and healthy life expectancy gains (HALE), with global expectancy levels now matching those last seen in 2012.
"Not only has the pandemic set back healthy longevity worldwide by years, it also reversed the previous trends of shifting disease burden to noncommunicable diseases," the report said.
Not only has the pandemic set back healthy longevity worldwide by years, it also reversed the previous trends of shifting disease burden to noncommunicable diseases.
The Americas and South-East Asia regions each lost about 3 years of life expectancy at birth between 2019 and 2021, the report said, as SARS-CoV-2 caused communicable diseases to be the cause of 23.0% of all deaths in 2020 and 28.1% in 2021 – a return to 2005 levels.
In 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 was the top cause of death for the region of the Americas. In 2019, communicable diseases only accounted for three of the top ten causes of death worldwide, a trend swiftly reversed by the novel coronavirus.
Pandemic caused expectancy rates to drop immediately
Between 2000 and 2019, steady gains were made with life expectancy. In 2000, life expectancy was 66.8 years (95% uncertainty interval [UI], 66.2 to 67.3 years) and rose to 73.1 (UI, 72.6 to 73.7) years in 2019.
Women gained an average of 6.5 years from 2000 to 2019, and men 6.2 years.
When the pandemic began in 2020, expectancy rates began to drop almost immediately. Global life expectancy at birth dropped by 0.7 years to 72.5 (UI, 71.9 to 73.1) years in 2020 (back to the 2016 level), and by a further 1.1 years to 71.4 (UI, 70.8 to 72.0) years in 2021 (the 2012 level).
The effects of the pandemic were seen most strongly in middle and high-income countries.
"By World Bank income groups, life expectancy was cut by 0.6 years in low-income countries and by 2.4 years in lower-middle-income countries, and HALE cut by 0.6 years and 2.0 years, respectively, between 2019 and 2021," the authors said.
COVID becomes leading cause of death
In 2019, seven of the 10 leading causes of death were non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and in upper-middle-income and high-income countries, NCDs accounted for nine out of 10 top causes of death, with only lower respiratory infections ranking.
By 2021, however, COVID-19 became the third and second leading causes, respectively, claiming 4.1 million and 8.8 million lives globally
"In all but two WHO regions (the African and Western Pacific regions), COVID-19 ranked among the top five causes of deaths in 2020 and 2021, responsible for the largest number of deaths in both years in the Region of the Americas, in 2021 in the South-East Asia Region and the second largest number of deaths in both years in the European and the Eastern Mediterranean regions," the WHO said.
