ISTAT, Italy’s national statistics bureau, has stated in a report that nationwide life expectancy for those born in 2020 dropped by 1.2 years, compared with 2019.
“In 2020, the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the sharp increase in the risk of mortality that derived from it abruptly interrupted the increase of life expectancy at birth that had marked a trend up to 2019,” ISTAT said.
Life expectancy for men in some of Italy’s worst-hit provinces in the pandemic has dropped by more than four years. In the northern provinces of Bergamo, Cremona and Lodi, life expectancy for men decreased by some 4.3 to 4.5 years.
For women in those provinces, the reduced expectancy ranged from 3.2 to 2.9 years.
For a child born in 2020, male life expectancy nationwide is 79.7 and female life expectancy is 84.4, ISTAT said.
The pandemic was first reported outside Asia in northern Italy, and much of the north reeled under confirmed Covid-19 deaths in the initial wave of cases. Coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 4.5 million people and infected over 221 million globally.
