Scientists have estimated the years of human lives lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is estimated that, on average, one death due to coronavirus takes away 16 years that a person could live. In general, worldwide losses due to SARS-CoV-2 reach 20.5 million life years. This is reported in an article published in Scientific Reports.
Researchers analyzed forecasts for the total number of deaths from COVID-19 in different countries, data on 1,279,866 deaths in 81 countries and life expectancy. It turned out that 44.9 percent of all lost years of life are in people aged 55 to 75, 30.2 percent in people under 55, and 25 percent in people over 75. This figure is 44 percent higher for men than for women.
Compared to other causes of death, the damage from COVID-19 is 2-9 times higher than from seasonal flu and 2-4 times lower than from cardiovascular diseases.
The researchers emphasize that their estimates may be overestimated or underestimated due to the difficulty in accurately recording deaths associated with COVID-19.