Two different studies found out that people dying due to coronavirus pandemic were expected to live for at least another decade. Andrew Briggs, professor at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine defies the hypothesis that these people who are dying would have died this year anyways. "That's simply not the case," he said.
Two academic analyses that were published separately examined data of mortality rate of some hard-hit countries and compared it with the age of COVID-19 victims. Both the studies used different techniques and compared the life expectancy of people who died and have common ailments such as heart disease, diabetes and dementia.
The study published by researchers from Welcome Trust in Scotland found people who died could have lived an average number of 14 years for men and 12 years for women. The Wall Street Journal reported they used mixed data collected from Italy and the UK and explored the long term conditions seen in coronavirus victims as well as the general population.
Scottish study
Scotland researchers examined the number of years of life that the coronavirus patients lost those who were also suffering from chronic illness, cancer and other multiple conditions. They established the fact that COVID-19 victims could have lived life for more than a decade and severely ill lost one to six years of life depending on their age.
Even US life-expectancy data reflects similar results. The study led by Mr Briggs states that victims lost an average of 14 years in the US and an average of 11 years in the UK. He said the difference is because victims identified in the US are comparatively younger than those in the UK. His study that used data collected from countries like the US, Canada, Norway and Israel state, stated that Americans with multiple conditions over 90 years are losing more than one year.
40% of the people expected to live for many years
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention data reveals that out of 37,000 victims who died of coronavirus between February 1 and April 25, 30 percent were above the age of 85. And 40 percent or 14,600 people between the age of 45 and 75 years were expected to live many more years.
David McAllister, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Glasgow, who led the Scottish study said numbers of years lost due to coronavirus by the infected persons is similar to serious heart or respiratory diseases. "I did think it would be much lower. I thought we would be seeing fewer years of life lost on average," he added.
