COVID-19: How Many Years of Life Lost?

Background COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in the United States over the three-month period March through May 2020. Another perspective is COVID-19’s toll in terms of years of life lost. We calculated years of life lost for COVID-19 and other leading causes of death over those three months in the US. We also predicted years of life lost for COVID-19 and ischemic heart diseases (which includes heart attacks) for March through August 2020. Methods Years of life lost are the sum of differences between life expectancy at age of death and age at death. Average years of life lost, years of life lost divided by the number of deaths, were also calculated. We used the COVID-19 Projections Using Machine Learning model to predict years of life lost from COVID-19 through the end of August 2020. Results COVID-19 caused 12,035 more deaths than ischemic heart diseases during March through May 2020 but ischemic heart diseases years of life lost were 1.5% greater than those for COVID-19. Average years of life lost were 10.8 and 12.4 for COVID-19 and ischemic heart diseases, respectively. At the end of August, COVID-19 may overtake ischemic heart diseases as the leading cause of deaths and years of life lost in the US. Conclusion Each COVID-19 death causes more than a decade of lost life in the US. We are reminded of a Danish Proverb that states “Prediction is difficult, especially when dealing with the future.” We suggest that while dying is bad, losing life is even worse.