During the first half of 2020, life expectancy in the United States fell by a whopping one year as the COVID-19 pandemic caused the first wave of deaths, health officials say.
Life expectancy decrease indicates the impact of COVID-19
The highest effect was experienced by minorities. Black Americans missing almost three years and Hispanics losing nearly two years, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday.
'This is an immense decrease,' said Robert Anderson, who handles the CDC statistics. "To find a decline like this, you have to go back to World War II, the 1940s." According to other health experts, it indicates the significant impact of COVID-19 on deaths directly due to sickness and heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.
Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a health equity researcher and dean at the University of California said, "What is really quite striking in these numbers is that they only reflect the first half of the year. I would expect that these numbers would only get worse."
This is the first time the CDC reported in life expectancy from early partial records with more death certificates may come in yet, as per TIME. The year 2020 has been known as the deadliest year in US history, with fatalities topping three million for the first time.
Life expectancy is the estimate of how long an infant can expect to live on average. In the first of 2020, Americans' overall life expectancy was 77.8, one year down from 78.8 in 2019. Meanwhile, life expectancy for females is 80.5 years, while males were 75.1 years.
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Over 20 million years were lost due to COVID-19
Today, a report claimed that more than 20 million years of life had been wasted prematurely because of COVID-19. On average, experts conclude that the disease wiped 16 years off the lives of a survivor of the coronavirus.
It was a clear reminder that COVID-19 not only kills the aged, even though it poses a much lower danger to young people, experts said. In 81 countries globally, including Britain and the US, Spanish researchers studied COVID-19's death tolls. According to Daily Mail, highly affected nations compared the difference between a person's age when they died with COVID-19 to the average life expectancy.
For COVID-19, the measure defined as Years of Life Loss (YLL) maybe two to nine times greater than the seasonal flu average. Mail Online's analysis of the study results reveals that Nepal was the worst affected country in the world in terms of how many years of life were lost per death to COVID-19. The landlocked country between the Himalayas saw coronavirus victims' lives shaved on average for almost 26 years.
Taiwan, Bolivia, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Kenya all preceded Nepal. Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland were at the other end of the scale, all of which lost less than ten years to COVID-19's death.
Meanwhile, the UK's rate stood at about 11.1 years, as per COVID-19 death, the US saw an average of 14 years lost. Thousands of tenants in nursing homes who died in the pandemic seemed skewed the UK rate. Ministers have been accused of failure in the first wave to secure the industry.
Read also: World's Second-Oldest Person Survives COVID-19 Before She Turns 117
Scientists look for COVID-19 safety issues
During the research period, scientists search for safety problems and maintain their tracking as COVID-19 vaccines roll out worldwide. So far, the rare risk of extreme allergic reactions is the only significant indication that has arisen, as per First Coast News.
Different types of COVID-19 vaccines have been licensed, and there will be other potential side effects for both, but more public statistics on the vaccines are being rolled out in Western countries than elsewhere. Countries often differ in their vaccination requirements, with some authorizing the use of vaccines requiring significant quantities of volunteers before final-stage testing.
But authorities in the U.S., Britain, and the European Union mandated tens of thousands of citizens to screen every vaccine before distribution. The US uses Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines so far, while Britain and Europe have cleared those plus the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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