U.S. Life Expectancy Drops Most in 70 Years Due to Covid Pandemic

Life expectancy in the United States dropped the most in more than seven decades last year as Covid-19 sent hundreds of thousands of Americans to early deaths.

The pandemic's disproportionate toll on communities of color also widened existing gaps in life expectancy between White and Black Americans, according to estimates released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The tally represents an extraordinarily grim accounting of an ongoing catastrophe. The first year of the pandemic delivered a bigger blow to American life expectancy than any year of the Vietnam War, the AIDS crisis or the “deaths of despair” that nudged down life expectancies in the mid-2010s.

“It’s staggering and depressing,” said Noreen Goldman, a professor of demography and public affairs at Princeton University. “The U.S. lags behind virtually all high-income countries in life expectancy, and now it’s lagging further behind.”

The pace of Covid-19 deaths dropped sharply as vaccinations spread in the first half of 2021. But it’s unclear how long it will take for life expectancy to rebound. The U.S. has recorded a total of 609,000 Covid deaths since the pandemic began. More than 43% occurred in 2021, with almost half the year still to come.

The first year of the pandemic reduced Americans’ life expectancy at birth by 1.5 years, to 77.3 years. That erased the country’s gains since 2003. It was the largest annual decline since 1943, in the middle of World War II. Goldman said that it was the second largest decline since the 1918 influenza pandemic, which is believed to have killed some 50 million people worldwide.

The 2020 pandemic decline widened the distance between the U.S. and other wealthy democracies like France, Israel, South Korea and the U.K., according to research recently published in The BMJ journal.

“This is not a decline that happened in other high-income countries, so something went terribly wrong in the U.S. where the number of Americans who died was vastly in excess of what it needed to be,” said Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University and one of the authors of the BMJ study.

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[skateking]

This pandemic made me realize how clueless the average person is.

[cappyjones]

Perhaps forcing infected nursing home patients back to the nursing homes may have something to do with this.

[gerryavalos]

Lol beofre the pandemic it was already lowering. But I see what’s happening, blaming covid instead of faulty leadership .smh

[misterschubert]

No, actually the overdose and suicide rates among teens-50 year olds have increased dramatically over the last decade. Most of the COVID deaths are people above the age of the life expectancy, so living to 75 instead of 80 would not cause a precipitous drop in the average. A lot of people were stuck home and became very depressed last year, but we've got to maintain this pandemic narrative now that the kids are headed back to school and people are able to wean themselves off the government teat again...

[Dan-udhz]

Contrary to popular belief, it was also dropping in the US before the pandemic even began.

[fadingwolf]

So, it's doing exactly what they intended it to do, then.

[lierbrera]

That means social security should be given at 55 full benefit

[roberteast]

"If someone dies WITH covid-19, we are counting that as a Covid-19 death." - Direct quote from Dr. Birx at the Coronavirus Task Force press conference. You could literally make a stuffy nose the leading cause of death using this rule.

[anthonyurban]

just another story to make people worry over nothing

[ThoughtsOnNews]

Promoting racial divide is pretty EVIL. 👎👎👎

[FEV]

I thought the thought police were cracking down on misinformation...

[frankthecat]

Ever get the feeling you’re being lied to?

[planestrainsautomobiles]

due to a few billionaire wanting to depopulate should be title

[XLAMitchell]

Funny math, as the average age of those who have died is over 79 years old according to CDC data.

[shinbooks]

Stress itself is killing people way younger than this.

[natas]

has nothing to do with the abnormally high murder rate going on in dem cities?

[Randmadness]

I know the term "gaslighting" has become cliche but everyone needs to go and read the FULL definition of gaslighting. Then go back and watch, not just this video but, but all news media.

[hellowell]

That's a painfully stupid way of measurement... It's obviously skews the results to create a fear mongering headline.

Completely meaningless.

[buckaye]

Quality of life over length! Too many people are kept alive with zero quality of life! 🤬🤬🤬

[ConnorFlips]

And it will go right back up next year because people aren't dying from it anymore.