Longevity Is Falling In The UK

 In Death & Funerals, pensioners

During 45 years working in cemeteries and crematoria, I recorded an increasing longevity each and every year. Because I was so used to that I never expected it to change. The improvement in longevity was quite astounding. It showed that we were living 1.5 years extra each decade and, of course, it lead to absurd predictions. One of these was that vast numbers of us would become centenarians. Some scientists predicted that we could defeat aging and live well beyond that figure. However, if longevity is falling in the UK, we will have to review all that progress.

Chronic illness

Firstly, the increase in longevity was not all good news. As our years extended, so did our period of chronic illness. For instance, as far back as the 1980’s I recall a daughter telling me all about her deceased mother’s dementia. That was not an illness I had really noticed at that time. It was probably because her actual cause of death was pneumonia. All to often, underlying causes of death were ignored. However, this shows the importance in how statistics are compiled. For instance, nobody has defined when ‘healthy’ becomes ‘hanging on’. Those hanging on are a statistic but not one we have really defined. Those hanging on, the ill defined comorbidity group, were rare in the early part of my career. In general, you became ill and you quickly died. All that has changed.

Damn statistics

The comorbidity group survive on medications. It is possible that in their poor health, when they catch Covid, they create variants which are then passed on into society. That could apply to any virus and not just Covid. For certain, their medications are urinated out and end up in the water we drink. The fact is that there is little that we humans do that does not have consequences. However, back to the stats. The reports of reduced longevity are really too early. It is clearly the impact of Covid but will it prove to be long term or just a blip? Also, what is reduced longevity and, more to the point, who is it?

Longevity is falling in the UK

Reduced longevity is when people are dying sooner than we expected. Clearly, those in the comorbidity group make up many of the deaths. If you have diabetes then you have higher risk because the body is weaker. However, what is really shocking is that the increased deaths might not be from the comorbidity group but from the anti-vaxxers. These are erstwhile healthy people! Nothing like this has happened before so perhaps the stats will highlight this over time. Sadly, time is not on their side.

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