In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people around the world have lost their lives, and the collective life expectancy has decreased by almost 70 million years. Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report on international annual statistics related to the pandemic, analyzing COVID-19 data until 2022. The report shows that mortality rates have increased even for non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
According to various government accounts, the pandemic has caused the deaths of nearly 7 million people worldwide. However, the actual death toll may be close to 200 million. The direct and subsequent effects of the coronavirus on the human body have resulted in the loss of millions of years of life expectancy, as highlighted in the WHO report.
The WHO has officially recorded the deaths of 54 million people due to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. However, they have estimated that the probable death toll may be as high as 149 million.
The WHO report shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a loss of 68 million years of life expectancy worldwide in just two years. This means that if all those who died due to the pandemic had survived, the total life expectancy would have been more than 68 million years.
The Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization, Samira Asma, has stated that on average, 22 life years are lost in every death.
In the past two decades, significant progress has been made in maternal and child health worldwide. Maternal mortality has decreased by one-third and child mortality has decreased by 50%. The incidence rate of infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria has also decreased significantly. In comparison to 2019, the average life expectancy of people worldwide has increased from 67 to 73 in 2020. However, due to various factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic, progress in the prevention and treatment of malaria and tuberculosis has taken a different turn.
