The life expectancy from the US has gone through an unprecedented decrease in 2020 since WWII, and you might have already guessed what the main reason was. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that the COVID pandemic is the most to blame for the decline, according to NPR.org.
According to worldometers.info, the coronavirus has killed over 625,000 people from the US since the initial outbreak of the virus, and it has caused more than 35 million infections.
Life expectancy in the US went down by 1.5 years in 2020
The National Center for Health from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to 74 percent of the life expectancy decline. From 78.8 years as it was in 2019, the life expectancy went down to 77.3 years, as it was reported in 2020.
The biggest declines in US life expectancy from 2020 were reported for Hispanic and Black communities. The life expectancy of African Americans dropped from 74.7 years in 2019 to 71.8 in 2020. The Hispanics were even more unlucky, as their life expectancy went down to 78.8 years in 2020 from 81.8 years as it was in 2019.
Steven Woolf, the study author from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, confirmed for NPR’s Allison Aubrey:
We have not seen a decrease like this since World War II. It’s a horrific decrease in life expectancy.
Lesley Curtis, who is chair of the Department of Population Health Sciences from Duke University School of Medicine, declared for NPR:
It is impossible to look at these findings and not see a reflection of the systemic racism in the US.
The range of factors that play into this include income inequality, the social safety net, as well as racial inequality and access to health care.
According to MacroTrends, the current population of the USA in 2021 is 332,915,073.
