Demographic Perspectives on Mortality of Covid-19 and Other Epidemics / Joshua R. Goldstein, Ronald D. Lee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldstein, Joshua R.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lee, Ronald D.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27043.

NBER working paper series no. w27043

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

What would a hypothetical one million US deaths in the Covid-19 epidemic mean for mortality of individuals at the population level? To put estimates of Covid-19 mortality into perspective, we estimate age-specific mortality for an epidemic claiming for illustrative purposes one million US lives, with results scalable over a broad range of deaths. We calculate the impact on period life expectancy (down 3 years) and remaining life-years (12.3 years per death), which for one million deaths can be valued at six to 10 trillion dollars. The age-patterns of Covid-19 mortality observed in other countries are remarkably similar and exhibit the typical rate of increase by age of normal mortality. The scenario of one million Covid-19 deaths is similar in scale to the decades-long HIV/AIDS and opioid-overdose epidemics but considerably smaller than the Spanish Flu of 1918. Unlike HIV/AIDS and opioid epidemics, the Covid-19 deaths will be concentrated in months rather than spread out over decades.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2020.