Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is it time to measure Covid differently?

According to government figures the toll of Covid 19 so far has been 124,419 deaths (if you define a Covid death as any death which occurs within 28 days of someone being confirmed as infected with the virus) or 140,062 (if you define a Covid death as one where the word ‘Covid’ is mentioned anywhere on a death certificate – regardless of whether they have produced a positive tests). These are figures which have been compared with Jumbo Jet-loads or matched up against the loss of life in the Somme. But should we really be using raw death figures – which are hugely emotive – to influence decisions as to how to handle the pandemic?

It would be better, argues Professor Dolan, if we instead measured the impact of Covid in life-years lost

Paul Dolan, professor of behavioural science at the LSE and his colleagues have made a case for using a broader measure of the impact of Covid, which takes into account life-years lost as well as the loss of wellbeing among the population at large. The problem with raw death figures is that they do not tell you how much life is lost: the death of an otherwise healthy 20 year old would count the same as the death of a nonagenarian who was already suffering from lung cancer. As we know, the toll of Covid has been very much weighted towards the latter group – unlike, say, measles, which still kills large numbers of children around the world.

It would be better, argues Professor Dolan, if we instead measured the impact of Covid in life-years lost, or better still in Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs) which take into account whether victims already had health conditions which seriously impacted their quality of life. But even QALYs, they argue, only measure the direct mortal effect of Covid 19.

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