By summing all these lost years we come up with an overall estimate of the total years lost due to COVID-19. If a man aged 80 died from COVID-19 we therefore assume he has ‘lost’ 8.2 years of life. These tables tell us the life expectancy of someone at each age – for example, they tell us that a man aged 80 in England or Wales could expect to live 8.2 more years, a woman 9.7. Years of life lost is a way of estimating how long someone would have lived, had they not died from COVID-19. On average, each person who died in the most deprived quintile lost 11 years of their life, compared with 10 years in the least deprived.While existing health inequalities mean these people may have had lower life expectancy, the analysis found that in total, 35% more lives were lost in the 20% most deprived areas than the least, with 45% more years of life lost in total. They also died at younger ages, so may have lost more years of life. People in the 20% most deprived parts of England were twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as those in the least deprived areas. Myth 3: ‘COVID-19 is the great leveller – we are all equally at risk’
Again, looking at England and Wales, women older than 75 lost around four-times more years of life than for a bad flu season for men it was five times higher. More years of men's lives have been lost in the pandemic than women’s.This is about a quarter of the life years lost among those older than 75 from COVID-19. These people lost a total of 140,000 years of life – 5.75 years each on average. In 2018, a bad flu year, around 25,000 people older than 75 died from flu or pneumonia. This shows us that, even looking only at those aged older than 75 (who account for most COVID-19 and flu deaths) – COVID-19 has been much more deadly. We have more detailed data for England and Wales.This is a sixth of the life years lost to COVID-19. In a bad flu year on average around 30,000 people in the UK die from flu and pneumonia, with a loss of around 250,000 life years.On average, each of the 146,000 people who died with COVID-19 lost 10.2 years of life.In England and Wales alone this figure is 1.4 million.
Myth 1: ‘Those who die from COVID-19 would have died soon anyway’
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