The COVID-19 pandemic caused life expectancy in the United States to decrease more between 2019 and 2021 than in any other biennium since 1923. According to initial estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), life expectancy decreased by an average of two years 2.7 years.
Life expectancy is therefore 76.1 years.
An American born in 2019 lived to be almost 80 years old.
In 2020, the value fell to 77 years before falling again in 2021.
“The results of the study are very disturbing.
Also because life expectancy in 2021 was even lower than in 2020," said Steven Woolf, a doctor who researches population health at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, about the numbers for the first and second year of the corona virus.
In 2020 alone, more than 300,000 people in the United States died after being infected with SARS-CoV-2.
The so-called Covid 19 deaths contributed almost 75 percent to the reduced life expectancy from 2019 to 2020, and around 50 percent from 2020 to 2021.
Big differences in life expectancy
The CDC, an agency of the Department of Health, also pointed to large disparities in life expectancy across demographic groups.
While Corona was the main cause of the reduced life expectancy among white Americans in 2021 with more than 54 percent, the virus contributed only 35 percent to a lower life expectancy among African Americans.
For the indigenous people, the figure was around 20 percent.
For Hispanic residents, the CDC only registered a "small decrease" of two to three months.
In the first year of Corona, on the other hand, the virus was responsible for more than 90 percent of the shorter life expectancy among immigrants from countries such as Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador.
According to the survey, heart disease, liver damage and suicide also contributed to shortening life expectancy in most demographic groups.
Fatal drug overdoses, which have skyrocketed over the past two years of the pandemic, further reduced average life expectancy for Americans.