The coronavirus pandemic was largely responsible for cutting American life expectancy by a year and a half in 2020, the sharpest decline in the United States since World War II, according to federal statistics released Wednesday.
An American child born today, if hypothetically all of their life in 2020 conditions, would live 77.3 years, down from 78.8 years in 2019. This is the lowest life expectancy since 2003. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the agency that released the numbers, and part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The troubled year also exacerbated racial and ethnic differences in life expectancy, with black and Hispanic Americans losing nearly two years more than white Americans. The life expectancy of Hispanic Americans decreased from 81.8 to 78.8, while the number of black Americans decreased from 74.7 to 71.8. The life expectancy of non-Hispanic White Americans decreased from 78.8 to 77.6.
The statistics further quantified the terrifying toll of the pandemic, which killed more than 600,000 Americans as it temporarily pushed the health system to its limits.
Life expectancy measurements are not intended to accurately predict actual life; Rather, it is a measure of the health of a population that shows either societal hardship or progress. The sheer scale of the 2020 decline has shaken researchers as it undermines decades of advances.
For the past few decades, life expectancy in the United States had risen steadily until 2014 when an opioid epidemic broke out and caused a decline rarely seen in developed countries. The decline had flattened out in 2018 and 2019.
The pandemic appears to have impacted the opioid crisis as well. According to the American Medical Association, more than 40 states have seen increases in opioid-related deaths since the pandemic began.
The sharp drop in 2020, mainly caused by Covid-19, is unlikely to be permanent. In 1918, the pandemic flu wiped Americans’ life expectancy by 11.8 years, but the number fully recovered the following year.
But even if deaths from Covid-19 decline, the economic and social effects will persist, especially among the disproportionately affected racial groups, researchers have found.
Although racial and ethnic differences in life expectancy have long existed, the differences have been narrowing for decades. In 1993, white Americans were expected to live 7.1 years longer than black Americans, but the gap was reduced to 4.1 years in 2019.
Covid-19 has undone much of that advancement: White Americans are now projected to live 5.8 years longer.
The gender gap remains: women in the United States lived to be 80.2 years old, according to the new numbers, up from 81.4 years in 2019, while men were counted at 74.5 years (after 76.3 years).
While the 1.5-year decline was mainly caused by Covid-19 and accounted for 74 percent of the negative contribution, there was also a smaller increase in accidental injuries, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, homicides and diabetes.
As a slight silver lining, mortality rates fell from cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, heart disease, suicide, and certain diseases that date back to the perinatal period.
