In the largest reduction over a two-year span since the 1920s, the average life expectancy for Americans fell from age 79 in the year 2019 to 76 years in 2021 and remains there today. Men are expected to live to 73.5 while women are projected to make it to 79.3 years. Life expectancy was on the rise in America for the past several decades. In 1900, average lifespan was 47 and then it increased to 68 years by 1950, making another steady rise to 79 years in 2019.
Why is life expectancy declining in the US? According to reports, around two-thirds of the decline resulted from COVID-19, drug overdoses, and accidental injury. Other issues involved heart and liver disease, and suicides.
Deaths stemming from covid can overlap in various ways—for example, a covid-related death (which makes up two-thirds of the decline) may have been due to drug overdose or suicide resulting from pandemic-era depression and isolation. Demise from covid, itself correlates with factors which put people at increased risk for covid complications such as America’s high rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. For example, the US’s population of overweight and obese people is 69 percent. Out of 333,000,000 citizens, there have been roughly 1,127,000 covid deaths. In stark contrast, Nigeria has a population of 223,804,000 with an overweight and obesity rate of 39 percent. Their covid deaths have amounted to 3,155.
Another number to consider which can be contributed to the pandemic but is not associated with deaths from covid complications is the 22,800 deaths from covid vaccines, listed on the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) site. As many adverse reactions go unreported, this number is potentially a small fraction of the accurate figure.
The reduction in life expectancy would have been even steeper if not for some positive news–declines in deaths from pneumonia, lung disease, Alzheimer’s, and influenza.
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