Timely, high-quality mortality data have allowed for assessments of the impact of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on life expectancies in upper-middle- and high-income countries. Extant data, though imperfect, suggest that the bulk of the pandemic-induced mortality might have occurred elsewhere. This article reports on changes in life expectancies around the world as far as they can be estimated from the evidence available at the end of 2021. The global life expectancy appears to have declined by 0.92 years between 2019 and 2020 and by another 0.72 years between 2020 and 2021, but the decline seems to have ended during the last quarter of 2021. Uncertainty about its exact size aside, this represents the first decline in global life expectancy since 1950, the first year for which a global estimate is available from the United Nations. Annual declines in life expectancy (from a 12-month period to the next) appear to have exceeded two years at some point before the end of 2021 in at least 50 countries. Since 1950, annual declines of that magnitude had only been observed on rare occasions, such as Cambodia in the 1970s, Rwanda in the 1990s, and possibly some sub-Saharan African nations at the peak of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic.

中文翻译：

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全球和国家预期寿命下降：2021 年底评估


及时、高质量的死亡率数据有助于评估 2019 年新型冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 对中高收入和高收入国家预期寿命的影响。现有数据虽然不完善，但表明大流行引起的大部分死亡可能发生在其他地方。本文报告了根据 2021 年底现有证据估计的全球预期寿命变化。2019 年至 2020 年间，全球预期寿命似乎下降了 0.92 岁，2020 年又下降了 0.72 岁到 2021 年，但下降似乎在 2021 年最后一个季度结束。除了具体规模的不确定性之外，这代表着自 1950 年以来全球预期寿命的首次下降，这是联合国首次提供全球估计寿命。在 2021 年底之前的某个时间点，至少 50 个国家的预期寿命每年下降（从 12 个月到下一个时期）似乎已超过两年。自 1950 年以来，每年如此大幅度的下降只在极少数情况下出现过，例如 1970 年代的柬埔寨、1990 年代的卢旺达，以及可能在艾滋病流行高峰期的一些撒哈拉以南非洲国家。