Coronavirus Kills People an Average of a Decade Before Their Time, Studies Find
Research, which can help governments assess economic cost of lockdowns, shows Covid-19 isn’t merely hastening the end for the already ill
People dying of Covid-19 could have expected to live on average for at least another decade, according to two studies that help fill in the developing picture of the human cost of the coronavirus pandemic.
The findings show the virus isn’t just carrying off the elderly or infirm a few months before their time.
“Some people think that these people dying would have died this year anyway,” said Andrew Briggs, a professor of health economics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine who led one of the studies. “That’s simply not the case.”
As governments loosen lockdowns that have contained the disease but cratered economies, estimates of life-years lost can feed into initial assessments comparing the costs of the shutdowns against the social and economic benefits of saving lives.
Such cost-benefit studies, while coldly analytical, are a standard tool used by public health services, insurers and pharmaceutical companies.
Some scientists said the new studies reinforce the argument that social distancing and other methods of preventing transmission should remain a feature of everyday life to prevent a resurgence of the coronavirus.
The two academic analyses, published separately, examined mortality data in several hard-hit countries to compare the age at which victims of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, are dying with data on life expectancy overall.
The studies, using different techniques, took account of differences in life expectancy associated with common ailments, such as heart disease, diabetes and dementia, to reflect varying levels of health of those who died.
A paper by Scotland-based researchers published online by the Wellcome Trust, a London-based foundation that funds scientific research, found the average number of years of life lost to Covid-19 for healthy adults is 14 for men and 12 for women.
Using a mix of data from Italy and the U.K. on the kind of long-term conditions seen in Covid-19 victims and the general population, the researchers also mapped out the years of life lost for those suffering from common chronic illnesses and cancer, including those with multiple conditions. They found Covid-19 still cost such victims more than a decade of life, on average, with the sickest patients losing between one and six years depending on their age. Repeating the analysis using U.S. life-expectancy data yielded similar results.
A separate analysis led by Mr. Briggs put the U.S. average at almost 14 years lost and the U.K. average at almost 11 years. The difference is because U.S. Covid-19 victims identified so far have been younger on average than those in the U.K., he said.
Even adjusting for age and existing medical conditions, Americans with multiple ailments over age 90 are losing more than one year of life, according to Mr. Briggs’s study, which he conducted with academics in the U.S., Canada, Norway and Israel, and which also covered those countries.
The study combined data on deaths linked to Covid-19 in each country with the country’s standard life-expectancy tables. The study adjusted for existing ailments and also took into account reduced quality of life associated with sickness.
The findings of both studies challenge a perception that Covid-19 primarily kills elderly people who would have likely died soon anyway, or that its societal cost is similar to that of seasonal influenza, researchers said.
Using estimates of life-years lost and standard values placed on one year of life in different countries, analysts can begin to put an economic value on the benefits of the extreme steps now being taken to fight the new coronavirus. These can be compared against the cost of shutdowns, in direct financial terms and secondary consequences such as increases in other medical conditions that are going untreated, both physical and psychological.
“This is not a value judgment. This is how governments have always accepted to make decisions” said Eline van den Broek-Altenburg, a professor of health economics at the University of Vermont who wasn’t involved in the new studies. She said not enough of that analysis is now being conducted.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that of the 37,000 who died in the U.S. with Covid-19 between Feb. 1 and April 25, 31% were over 85. But 40%, or 14,600 people, were between 45 and 75 years old, and could have expected to live many more years. Total deaths linked to the virus in the U.S. passed 64,000 on Friday.
The number of years of life lost to Covid-19 is similar to that seen in serious diseases such as heart disease or severe respiratory illnesses, said David McAllister, senior clinical lecturer in public health at the University of Glasgow, who led the Scottish study.
“I did think it would be much lower. I thought we would be seeing fewer years of life lost on average,” Dr. McAllister said.
There have been more than three million confirmed cases of infection with the new coronavirus across the world and almost a quarter of a million deaths linked to Covid-19. Disease experts say such figures probably underestimate the true toll, given gaps in data caused by reporting delays, low levels of testing for the virus, and other factors.
Scientists have for months been trying to pin down exactly how lethal the pathogen is, considering that many more people may have been infected. In severe cases, the disease ravages the lungs and has been linked to problems affecting the heart, brain and kidneys. Estimates of the fatality rate for those infected vary. A March 30 paper published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, concluded the percentage of those infected in China who later died was between 0.4% and 1.3%. The risk of being hospitalized with Covid-19 was as high as 18% for those over 80 years old.
Keith Neal, emeritus professor in the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham, England, who wasn’t involved in either study, said the papers’ findings underscore the disease’s severity.
“We don’t usually have something as devastating as this,” he said. To limit the spread of the virus, he said, governments should persist with measures such as social distancing and isolating infected individuals after lockdowns are lifted.