Life expectancy drops in pandemic-struck Italy

Life expectancy for men in some of Italy's worst-hit provinces in the pandemic dropped by more than four years.

ISTAT, Italy's national statistics bureau, in a report on Monday said that compared with 2019, nationwide life expectancy for those born in 2020 dropped by 1.2 years.

"In 2020, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the sharp increase in the risk of mortality that derived from it abruptly interrupted the increase of life expectancy at birth that had marked a trend up to 2019,'' ISTAT said.

The pandemic first erupted outside Asia in northern Italy, and much of the north reeled with confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the initial wave of cases. In the northern provinces of Bergamo, Cremona and Lodi, life expectancy for men decreased by some 4.3 to 4.5 years. For women in those provinces, the reduced expectancy ranged from 3.2 to 2.9 years.

For a child born in 2020, male life expectancy nationwide is 79.7 and female life expectancy is 84.4, ISTAT said.

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