Life expectancy dipped during the COVID-19 pandemic, the magnitude of which had not been seen in a single year since World War II in Western Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, according to a study of 29 countries.The results, published yesterday in the International Journal of Epidemiology, showed that COVID-19 offset most life expectancy gains in the 5 years leading up to the pandemic in many countries.
Declines were most precipitous in the United States, where males lost 2.2 years in 2020 relative to 2019 and where COVID-19 contributed significantly to high death rates in the under-60 age-group.More than 5 years of progress 'wiped out'A team led by University of Oxford researchers used public health data to