How many years of life has Covid-19 stolen?

[GordMay]

The pandemic’s true health cost: how much of our lives has COVID stolen?
Researchers are trying to calculate how many years have been lost to disability and death.
More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01341-7

Count the cost of disability caused by COVID-19
Focusing only on cases and deaths hides the pandemic’s lasting health burden on people, societies and economies.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01392-2

Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore
Influenza, polio and more have shown that infections can change lives even decades later. Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19?
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00414-x

[grantmc]

And the recent news about Monkeypox from the BBC.
More than 80 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in at least 12 countries.
But with a 1 in 10 it's a much higher death rate than Covid.

[Mike OReilly]

All I know is the pandemic, and our response to it, took two years away from my cruising life. I last saw my boat in the fall of 2019. I'm finally going to get back to it in about two weeks.

I can't complain too much, because absence my water life, I've been able to keep doing new and interesting things all this time. But the plague certainly cost me years of cruising.

And depending on how degraded my boat is, perhaps more... we'll see, in two weeks.

[goboatingnow]

Covid did little to inhibit my boating plans. Sold one boat in 2020 , bought another , sailed from may to October last year etc.

[smj]

Planned on going back to work building a house in fall of 2020, but with the cost of building and material we’ve held of on building so gained another 2 years of the cruising life so far.

[S/V Illusion]

Don’t want to waste the time searching for a link but numerous DOT, NHTSA, et.al. studies indicate the number of highway traffic fatalities avoided because of the pandemic.

Ironically, in this respect, Covid saved some lives. Internationally more so.

Many businesses thrived and grew as a result of the pandemic. Lots of ‘free’ money saved as well.

I doubt Nature magazine considered the whole picture.

[El Pinguino]

By the time they were in their 50's my parent's generation - in the UK - had been through two world wars, the flu pandemic, the great depression, and the second world war.
Best we don't complain too much.
Oh and be thankful you aren't living in Ukraine.

[GordMay]

Apparently, the mandated societal lockdown policies led to reduction in road traffic accidents resulting in non-serious or no injuries, but not [so much] those resulting in serious or fatal injuries.

“Global impact of COVID-19 pandemic on road traffic collisions”

Results
Traffic volume dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic which was associated with significant drop in RTCs globally and a reduction of road deaths in 32 out of 36 countries in April 2020 compared with April 2019, with a decrease of 50% or more in 12 countries, 25 to 49% in 14 countries, and by less than 25% in six countries. Similarly, there was a decrease in annual road death in 33 out of 42 countries in 2020 compared with 2019, with a reduction of 25% or more in 5 countries, 15–24% in 13 countries, and by less than 15% in 15 countries. In contrast, the opposite occurred in four and nine countries during the periods, respectively. There was also a drop in the number of admitted patients in trauma centers related to RTCs during both periods. This has been attributed to an increase in speeding, emptier traffic lanes, reduced law enforcement, not wearing seat belts, and alcohol and drug abuse.

Conclusions
The COVID-19 pandemic has generally reduced the overall absolute numbers of RTCs, and their deaths and injuries despite the relative increase of severity of injury and death. The most important factors that affected the RTCs are decreased mobility with empty lines, reduced crowding, and increased speeding. Our findings serve as a baseline for injury prevention in the current and future pandemics ...

More ➥ https://wjes.biomedcentral.com/artic...17-021-00395-8

“COVID-19 Lockdowns and Decline in Traffic Related Deaths and Injuries”

This paper investigates the decline in traffic accidents, fatalities and injuries during the months that COVID-19 stay-at-home orders implemented in Turkey. Taking into account the decline in accidents in March and April together, these rates roughly translate to 200 traffic related deaths and 17,600 injuries avoided during the months that stay-at-home orders were in place. The Difference in Difference estimates that exploit variation in
quarantine orders among small cities, I also show that stricter rules in April are responsible for the decline of accidents with death or injury by 35 percent, death by 72 percent and injuries by 19 percent ...

More ➥ https://docs.iza.org/dp13278.pdf

”Traffic accidents significantly dropped during COVID-19 lockdown, study finds.”

Data shows billions of dollars of cost savings; suggests implications for remote work policies
Research shows that traffic accidents decreased by nearly half during the two-month period at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when residents of most states were under a stay-at-home order ...

➥ https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0307131948.htm

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

Don’t want to waste the time searching for a link but numerous DOT, NHTSA, et.al. studies indicate the number of highway traffic fatalities avoided because of the pandemic.

Ironically, in this respect, Covid saved some lives. Internationally more so.

For sure. And yet, despite these lives saved as a byproduct of the COVID restrictions - fewer deaths than usual from traffic, travel, workplace accidents, flu, etc - the excess death numbers in 2020 and 2021 still exceed those of "normal", non-COVID years, and this is a truer measure of the actual deaths from COVID. The indirect impacts - like long COVID, labour shortages, recovering logistics, healthcare stress and burnout - we are still experiencing and measuring.


As we were on the cusp of retirement when COVID struck, and we were fairly observant about masks, distancing, avoiding unnecessary public exposure, the pandemic has cost us personally about nothing, except for some missed travel opportunities. We stuck close to home, and just rolled with things. And we still got in some sailing, although abbreviated seasons with late launches.

But as consumers we spent less, as did the majority of people, which has had an economic impact, I'm sure. We can't ignore that many career paths were disrupted by the pandemic; I can only hope that people are able to make up lost ground and that we as a society continue to help everyone get back on their feet.

[Mike OReilly]

The last time I surveyed the research on "excess deaths" I recall seeing that a few countries came out in the positive, or only slightly to the excess, but most were in the red, and some deeply so.

The Economist published an exhaustive look at the global picture, and continues to update the datasets as they become available. It might be worth a look:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...deaths-tracker

[PippaB]

Hmm, the US DOT numbers show just the opposite, a significant increase in traffic fatalities during the pandemic, both in total numbers and even more in terms of deaths per vehicle mile.

While Americans drove less in 2020 due to the pandemic, NHTSA’s early estimates show that an estimated 38,680 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes—the largest projected number of fatalities since 2007. This represents an increase of about 7.2 percent as compared to the 36,096 fatalities reported in 2019. Preliminary data from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in 2020 decreased by about 430.2 billion miles, or about a 13.2-percent decrease. The fatality rate for 2020 was 1.37 fatalities per 100 million VMT, up from 1.11 fatalities per 100 million VMT in 2019. NHTSA’s analysis shows that the main behaviors that drove this increase include: impaired driving, speeding and failure to wear a seat belt

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api...ication/813115

And peculiar to the US (not trying to yank that thread), gun fatalities were up 35% in 2020.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-dea...c-cdc-reports/

[Montanan]

How COVID-19 can affect your heart health


And not in a good way.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/how-covid...203756992.html

A recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3]
found that those who recover from a severe case of the disease face significantly higher risks of developing new heart problems and other serious cardiovascular disorders. The study compared rates of new cardiovascular problems in over 150,000 people infected with the coronavirus before vaccines were available, with 5.6 million people who were never infected; they were also compared to a group of 5.9 million people whose data was collected before the pandemic. Researchers found that a year after their recovery, people who had suffered a severe COVID-19 infection had a 63% higher risk for developing heart complications, including heart attacks, heart failure, arrhythmias and stroke, compared to people who were not infected.

The study found that even people who had mild COVID-19 and were not hospitalized appear to be at a higher risk of heart problems a year after infection. People who had a milder form of the disease had a 39% higher risk of developing heart problems compared to those who had never been sick.

My cardiologist told me last month during my annual check up with him that he and his colleagues at the International Heart Institute have been swamped with cardiology patients, there being a lot of underlying damage associated with Covid-19 and SARS-CoV-2 infections, even with perosn that have had non-symptomatic infections. Darn virus will have lingering effects.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by GordMay

The pandemic’s true health cost: how much of our lives has COVID stolen?
Researchers are trying to calculate how many years have been lost to disability and death.
More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01341-7

Count the cost of disability caused by COVID-19
Focusing only on cases and deaths hides the pandemic’s lasting health burden on people, societies and economies.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01392-2

Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore
Influenza, polio and more have shown that infections can change lives even decades later. Why the complacency over possible long-term effects of COVID-19?
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00414-x

Not Covid, but the measures disrupted my life and I blame it on the governments. They stole 2 years and are still stealing as we all have to pay for the damages caused.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

All I know is the pandemic, and our response to it, took two years away from my cruising life. I last saw my boat in the fall of 2019. I'm finally going to get back to it in about two weeks.

I can't complain too much, because absence my water life, I've been able to keep doing new and interesting things all this time. But the plague certainly cost me years of cruising.

And depending on how degraded my boat is, perhaps more... we'll see, in two weeks.

Well mine only sat until mid summer last year and I found a bunch of putzzy items to address before I could drop it
Sad but true

Think of all the folks who put a boat away and then 5 years later want top dollar
Sigh

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by PippaB

Hmm, the US DOT numbers show just the opposite, a significant increase in traffic fatalities during the pandemic, both in total numbers and even more in terms of deaths per vehicle mile.



https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api...ication/813115

And peculiar to the US (not trying to yank that thread), gun fatalities were up 35% in 2020.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-dea...c-cdc-reports/

I wonder if that would be due to people using the highway like a race track??