The average life of Americans has collapsed: the improvements of the last 20 years have been canceled
Interim data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that American life expectancy dropped to 77.3 years in 2020, roughly the same level as in 2003. Twenty years of medical progress, if any. has been, canceled.
Life expectancy in the United States fell by 1.5 years in 2020, the largest decline since at least World War II. The causes are obvious: Covid, but not only that, because homicides and overdoses for medicines and drugs have also increased.
“I myself had never seen such a big change except in the history books,” said Elizabeth Arias, a demographer at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics and lead author of the report.
And from what we have seen so far, life expectancy will not return to pre-pandemic levels this year. It could decrease again if the Delta variant causes new infections to arise. Additionally, many people missed or delayed treatment for diabetes, high blood pressure, and other conditions in the past year that could lead to premature deaths.
COVID was the third leading cause of death in the United States last year, with heart disease and cancer remaining at the top . More deaths from homicide, diabetes and chronic liver disease also contributed to the decline in life expectancy. If we then evaluate the racial aspect, the strongest decline has been among male Hispanics, while Hispanic men in general have a higher average life span, even if it has been in sharp decline.
A few days ago, we reported the latest "staggering numbers" on American overdose deaths: More than 90,000 Americans died in 2020 from drug-related overdoses, with about 80% of those involving fentanyl, the synthetic opioid replaced heroin as the most commonly abused illicit opioid in the United States. These deaths, like those linked to many deaths from liver diseases, died indirectly from Covid-19 or rather died from the depressive response of governments to Covid-19.
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles of Economic Scenarios.
The article The average life of Americans has collapsed: the improvements of the last 20 years have been canceled comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-vita-media-degli-americani-e-crollata-cancellati-i-miglioramenti-degli-ultimi-20-anni/ on Thu, 22 Jul 2021 06:50:37 +0000.