Reuters today reported that the University of Oxford has looked into life expectancy, and found a decline unprecedented since World War II. The university’s own article on the study is headlined, “COVID-19 Has Caused the Biggest Decrease in Life Expectancy since World War II.” The full study is titled: “Quantifying Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic Through Life-Expectancy Losses: A Population-Level Study of 29 Countries.” (https://academic.oup.com/ije/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyab207/6375510?searchresult=1)
Oxford’s study is of data, death records, from 29 countries. Some 27 of them suffered falls in life expectancy in 2020-21 by an average of more than a full year. All of them are European countries plus the United States and Chile. The study is really a partial look at life expectancy declines in Europe – not including Russia — in World War II and in the COVID pandemic.
Now according to the statement of David Beasley, head of the World Food Program, on Sept. 24, since the start of 2020 the entire world has suffered 4.7 million deaths from COVID, and 16.7 million from starvation. “This year 20 million may die from hunger.” Most of these 17 million have not died in Europe or in the United States, but in the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Southwest, Southeast, South Asia, and South America. These nations do not maintain such comprehensive and accurate death registers that Oxford researchers can easily study them. Therefore the actual drop in worldwide life expectancy from pandemic, war and famine over the past 18 months may be larger than one year, and in case has still to be determined.
