General epidemiological trends are changing the world, and not just because of the recent pandemic. This is reported by the data from the most important and reliable international report we have available, the Global Burden of Disease 2021, just published in the Lancet and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In the years 2020 and 2021, 131 million people died worldwide, 15.9 million due to the Covid-19 pandemic, of which 5.89 million in 2020 and 9.97 million in 2021 (both deaths directly due to the virus and indirect deaths due to the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic). The estimate is very close to that formulated by the WHO which had quantified the deaths at 14.9 million: it is as if the entire population of Belgium and Ireland had been swallowed up by the viral tsunami.
World life expectancy assessed at birth from 1950 to 2021 grew by 22.7 years, going from 49 years to 71.7 years, while a negative decline was recorded for the first time from 2019 to 2021, due always the pandemic, with a loss of 1.6 years of life expectancy. In the two-year period 2020-2021, mortality from all causes increased in men over 15 years of age by 21.9% compared to 2019 and in women by 16.6%.. This difference between the two sexes cannot be clearly interpreted and will require further studies, especially if we consider that in the 15-39 age group the mortality of men was 65.9% higher than that of women. However, Covid-19 did not have the negative impact that was feared on children: infant mortality (under 5 years) in fact went from 5.21 million in 2019 to 4.66 million in 2021.
It’s Italy? Our country’s mortality during the pandemic years was significantly higher than the rest of Europe (98,000 deaths in 2020 and 62,000 in 2021) and our neighboring countries such as France and Germanynot to mention the abysmal epidemiological differences with Israel which cannot be explained only by the precocity of the vaccination campaign and the younger age of the population of that country.
On the other hand, even in Italy itself the regional differences were enormous and not only justifiable by the timing of the pandemic waves: just think that in the spring of 2020 in Bergamo there was an excess mortality of almost 600% (586% to be exact) while in Trieste the increase was only 15%, yet even there Covid had arrived and had largely widespread.
There will be a long discussion about what happened, what factors played it, for example what the role of air pollution was, which was significant in Lombardy, even if the places responsible for doing so are universities and research centres, certainly not parliamentary commissions .
However, life expectancy at birth in our country has grown significantly, going from 68.9 years in 1950 to 80.3 in 1990, 82.4 in 2000, 84.4 in 2010 and 84.9 in 2021.
The world population has progressively increased from 2.52 billion in 1950 to 6.1 billion in 2000 to 7.89 billion in 2021, however Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia have provided only a partial contribution to this result , having recorded an increase in population from 1950 to 1992 and then experienced, with some variations over time, a progressive decline.
Overall, the world population has significantly slowed down its growth from 2017 to today, the trend is certainly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic but it had started previously and the trend could also depend on other factors.
The data from our country document a stabilization of its population with progressive aging, not radically different from other similar European countries, but which represents a significant social challenge.
These epidemiological data must make us reflect on the changes that are taking place in many regions of the world, only summarized here, whose economic and social repercussions will be very important, which deserve careful consideration and analysis, also and above all from politics.
April 2, 2024
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