Covid causes first Swedish life expectancy fall in more than a century
30 November
Constantin Gurdgiev, an economist, re-tweeted about how Swedish life expectancy is set to decline for the first time in over a century due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The country’s statistics agency, Statistics Sweden stated that the average life expectancy of people living in the country had risen between 1900 and 2019.
However, the current fall to 80.8 in the year through August for men and 84.4 among women has become clearly visible.
Reports suggest that the country is harder hit by the coronavirus pandemic compared to its Nordic neighbours such as Finland, Norway, and Denmark, and has reported much higher Covid-19 mortality rates.
Sweden’s old age homes were particularly hard hit by pandemic deaths.
However, authorities have now jumped into action, completely banning social interactions to fight the virus spread, amid arguments around not imposing lockdowns becoming more controversial.
Sweden has been one of the hardest hit nations in Europe, and also the slowest in containing transmission of the disease.