Sad results: for 2 years of the pandemic, life expectancy in Russia fell by 3.6 years

The well-known Russian demographer Aleksey Raksha summed up the interim results of the pandemic in his blog, and first of all he paid attention to the dynamics of mortality, not morbidity.

The expert concluded that in two years Russia has accumulated approximately 1,040,000 excess deaths - this is the second place in the world after India, and the United States is in third place. If we rank countries by mortality growth relative to the expected percentage trend, then out of 116 countries we are in the top ten in terms of excess mortality, and this is the worst result among countries of the same or higher level of development, and only Kazakhstan competes with us in this sad statistics . All other countries, affected more or the same way, are poorer, less developed.

Today, according to the expert, Russia's prospects are not so bad. Last week, excess mortality continued to decline and amounted to about +23%, i.e. 1200-1300 per day. Approximately 196-199 thousand deaths are expected in January with a base of 164-167, i.e. excess mortality may amount to "only" 30-35 thousand (for December, respectively, 215.7 and 65, for November, 257 and 116). This is the lowest value since May.

As for queries in search engines, the leaders in them are Moscow, Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Karachay-Cherkessia (there is also a “delta”), Tver, Leningrad, Tula, Oryol, Astrakhan, Yaroslavl regions. Very rapid growth occurred in Tyva and Kalmykia. But in the Primorsky, Khabarovsk Territories, the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Amur Region, there is almost no growth yet: Omicron, apparently, has not yet reached there.

Fortunately, from the end of February, mortality will decline. As a rule, in those countries where official statistics are trustworthy, it can be seen that from the beginning of the growth of an epidemic wave to the peak it takes three weeks, no more. And then the decline begins. Not as fast as the growth was, but in the end, the wave ends in a couple of months.

I do not predict the same terrible mortality that we had at the peak of the delta wave at the end of October, when more than 4100 people died daily. I think that among those infected, the lethality will be ten times less compared to the delta. You can expect a lethality rate of 0.1-0.2 percent for this virus. I predict that a new wave of Omicron may lead to an increase in mortality, but I do not expect more than 3000 excess deaths per day, but most likely less, about 2000.

In general, the current situation is comparable to 1994-1995, 2002-2004, only at that time excess mortality was mainly from alcohol, from murders, suicides, cardiovascular diseases, and these were mostly men of working age. The excess mortality was felt more strongly, as those who should not have died so prematurely left. Therefore, the fall in life expectancy at that time was significant. For example, under Gorbachev, at the height of the anti-alcohol campaign (1986-1987), life expectancy reached 70 years. And in 1994, she did not reach the age of 64. That is, we have received a reduction for more than six years. Now the loss of life expectancy is 3.6 years. Before the pandemic, we reached 73.6 years. But covid has pushed us back to about 70 years old. The loss is large and greater than in almost all countries for which this has already been calculated, but still less than we had in the 90s and zero years.