The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of our lives over the past year, including the length of life itself. The life expectancy in the United States has dropped by one year in the early stages of the pandemic.
In the United States, it was 78.8 years overall in 2019 but dropped to 77.8 years in the first half of 2020, undoing almost two decades of progress. Not only that, but the winter surge likely worsened things.
Experts with the CDC say this is the largest decline since World War II. The decline was worse for ethnic minorities, with an almost three-year drop for the Black population and almost two years for the Hispanic community.
The COVID-19 pandemic is blamed for more than 500,000 deaths in the United States. For context, an estimated 675,000 people died from the 1918 Spanish Flu.
