Our estimates of a 0.9 year decline in annual life expectancy in Spain suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to cause life expectancy stalls not seen for decades.
In the first half of 2020, Spain has been one of the most affected countries both in terms of directly related COVID-19 deaths [1], as well as in terms of total excess mortality [4]. We estimated the annual life expectancy drop between 2019 and the one year window that closes out on 5 July, 2020 to be 0.9 years (~11 months) in Spain. In contrast, the average annual increase in life expectancy in Spain increased on average two months per year from 2009 to 2019. Altogether, this suggests that life expectancy drop between observed and expected annual life expectancy in the recent one year window would be around or below one year.
Annual life expectancy at birth in 2019, 2020*a and differences between periods for Spain
