QCOSTARICA – Covid-19 would have caused the Costa Rican population to lose, between January 29 and June 30 of this year, 60,170 years of life.
How is this possible and what does it mean?
This variable is called years of life lost and it is one of the ways of evaluating the impact of mortality from a disease or condition in a certain population or place.
In other words, if we were based solely on people’s age (and not other health factors), how long would each of the deceased have lived?
This component of mortality indicates how many years were lost based on premature deaths.
The Universidad Hispanoamericana (UH) carried out an analysis on this variable at that time and thus reached this conclusion, as a country, the loss is 60,170 years.
The researchers assure that this data is vital, since it is a way of calculating the impact of mortality, which is not only based on saying how many people died from a disease.
How to make the determination of when a death is premature and when it is not? The researchers at the UH took into account those that occurred before the average life expectancy at birth was reached for our country, which is 80 years.
“Unfortunately, as the number of deaths increases, this data will increase to worrying levels, because in the long term, without a doubt, this will impact the dynamics of the country, especially due to the population within the labor market,” said doctor and epidemiologist Ronald Evans, coordinator of the report.
This increase is already visible.
According to the analysis, by January 29, deaths accumulated 25,240 years of life lost since the arrival of the virus in the country.
Upon reaching March it had an increase of 18.17%.
At the end of the first semester, it had increased 138.39%, since January 30.
Who has suffered the most from this loss of years?
Analysts divided those under 80 into five-year age groups and analyzed where they were the most years of life lost.
In this, two factors come together, on the one hand, how far each age group is from the 80s (because the further away, each deceased accumulates more years lost) and the number of deaths in each age group, which is rather higher. the older people are.
The group from 55 to 59 years old obtained first place, with 9,534 years. They were followed by those from 60 to 64 years old, with 8,332.
The third group are those from 50 to 54 years old, with 8,086 years.
However, there are also differences in the young groups when one looks at the evolution over time. Years of life lost in people between 35 and 39 years old rose 188% in the last quarter.
Deaths and fatality
To better understand the impact of years of life lost, it is good to review the most basic facts.
Up to Friday, July 23, (the latest figures available), Costa Rica had 4,941 deaths related to covid-19.
These people represent 1.24% of the infections registered in Costa Rica. This is known as lethality.
The fatality also varies according to age groups. If the data is taken from the beginning of the pandemic, older adults accumulate the highest fatality, with 11.91%; in adults, it is 0.62% and in minors, it is 0.003%.
