COVID-19 reduced lifespan by up to 9 years
A new metric, the "mean unfulfilled lifespan", estimates the impact on lifespan of temporary "shocks" such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Patrick Heuveline of the University of California, Los Angeles, presents the MUL in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 27, 2021, finding COVID-19 reduced lifespan by almost 9 years in New Jersey at its peak.
To better illustrate the impact of temporary disasters on average length of life, Heuveline developed a new metric dubbed mean unfulfilled lifespan (MUL). The MUL is the difference between the average age at death for those who died in a given timeframe, and the average age these individuals would have been expected to reach, if there had not been a temporary shock to mortality rates.
Heuveline then demonstrated the MUL by applying it to data from the ongoing pandemic. In particular, he showed how the MUL could be used to compare the impact of COVID-19 between different regions. For instance, using a rolling seven-day timeframe, his calculations suggest that MUL peaked at 8.91 years in New Jersey and 8.96 years in Mexico City.
He notes that uncertainties in MUL may arise from potential differences between reported and actual COVID-19 deaths, and explores how these issues can be accounted for when calculating MUL.
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