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. 2021 Feb 18;11(1):3504.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83040-3.

Years of life lost to COVID-19 in 81 countries

Héctor Pifarré I Arolas  1 , Enrique Acosta  2 , Guillem López-Casasnovas  3 , Adeline Lo  4 , Catia Nicodemo  5 , Tim Riffe  2 , Mikko Myrskylä  2   6
Affiliations

Years of life lost to COVID-19 in 81 countries

Héctor Pifarré I Arolas et al. Sci Rep. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Understanding the mortality impact of COVID-19 requires not only counting the dead, but analyzing how premature the deaths are. We calculate years of life lost (YLL) across 81 countries due to COVID-19 attributable deaths, and also conduct an analysis based on estimated excess deaths. We find that over 20.5 million years of life have been lost to COVID-19 globally. As of January 6, 2021, YLL in heavily affected countries are 2-9 times the average seasonal influenza; three quarters of the YLL result from deaths in ages below 75 and almost a third from deaths below 55; and men have lost 45% more life years than women. The results confirm the large mortality impact of COVID-19 among the elderly. They also call for heightened awareness in devising policies that protect vulnerable demographics losing the largest number of life-years.

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Conflict of interest statement

TR consults for the United Nations Population division. GLC has had an unrestricted annual Grant from Novartis below six thousand euros for the last ten years (2010–2020). HPA, MM, AL, EA, and CN declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Panels A through C report the ratio of COVID-19 YLL rates over influenza YLL rates (in median/maximum deadly years by country), traffic accidents, and heart conditions respectively. Panel D reports, countries with available data, the ratio of YLL rates of COVID-19 deaths over YLL rates of excess deaths. When two causes of mortality affect YLL equally, the ratio is precisely 1; larger ratio values suggest COVID-19 YLL rates are higher than the alternative cause. Average ratios in vertical lines in each panel. Each country name is followed by (in parentheses) the number of days passed since the country’s first official COVID-case up to the last day of available COVID-19 deaths data for that country. Countries always sorted by ratio of COVID-19 YLL vs seasonal flu (in median years) across panels for ease of reading.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Panel A displays the country-specific proportions of YLL traced back to each age group. The global average proportion is presented at the top, and countries are in decreasing proportion of YLL in the under 55 age bracket. Panel B reports the ratio of male YLL rates to female YLL rates for countries with available gender specific COVID-19 death counts. Countries with genders equally affected by YLL rate are closer to the parity line at 1, while countries with women more affected have points lying on the left; countries with men more severely affected display points lying to the right. Global average and global weighted average of male to female YLL are presented at the top.
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References

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