The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) published a study over the weekend revealing a decline in global life expectancy following the coronavirus pandemic.
“In just two years, the COVID-19 pandemic reversed over a decade of gains in both life expectancy at birth and healthy life expectancy (HALE),” the World Health Statistics report read. “By 2020, both global life expectancy and HALE had rolled back to 2016 levels (72.5 years and 62.8 years, respectively). The following year saw further declines, with both retreating to 2012 levels (71.4 years and 61.9 years, respectively).”
The study found that the Americas and South-East Asia saw the largest declines in life expectancy.
“Due largely to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, global life expectancy and healthy life expectancy have both regressed to the level a decade ago, although the impact was unequal across regions and income groups,” W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “This regression and its associated inequality signal significant challenges to health systems, demanding urgent attention and action.”
“The pandemic wiped out nearly a decade of progress in improving life expectancy within just two years,” the report continued.
The organization also published new statistics on suicide, noting that North and South America were the only region documenting an increase in suicides from 2000 to 2021.
“In just two years, the COVID-19 pandemic erased a decade of gains in life expectancy. That’s why the new Pandemic Agreement is so important,” Tedros said in a statement following the publication of the report. “Not only to strengthen global health security, but to protect long-term investments in health and promote equity within and between countries.”
In May 2023, three years after the first outbreak of COVID-19, the W.H.O. announced that the virus would no longer be considered an established and ongoing health issue that “no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).”
The Committee members argued at the time that there had been a “decreasing trend in COVID-19 deaths, the decline in COVID-19 related hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions, and the high levels of population immunity to SARS-CoV-2.”
The Committee advised that it was “time to transition to long-term management of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
