Fall in US life expectancy not seen since carnage of WWII

Life expectancy in the US fell by 1.5 years last year in a ‘catastrophic’ rate of decline not seen since the height of World War II.

Hospital staff move a body to a temporary morgue in New York during the peak of the pandemic last year. Picture: AFP.

Life expectancy in the US fell by 1.5 years last year in a “catastrophic” rate of decline not seen since the height of World War II.

The figure came down to 77.3 years, with a bigger fall for men (1.8 years) than for women (1.2 years).

Among racial groups it was down three years for the Hispanic population, 2.9 years for black Americans and 1.2 years for white people.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in its report for last year that Covid-19 was blamed for three quarters of the decline, which took annual life expectancy figures back to where they were in 2003.

More than 3.3 million Americans died last year, far more than any other year in the country’s history, with Covid-19 accounting for about 11 per cent of those deaths. The decline in life expectancy last year was the biggest one-year drop since 1943, when thousands of young Americans were dying in World War II.

The next most significant factor after Covid-19 in the figures was “unintentional injuries”, which includes the rising number of drug overdoses.

American life expectancy fell by more and remains lower than in European countries with comparable economies. Provisional estimates by Public Health England show that life expectancy last year was 78.7 years for men and 82.7 years for women, down on 2019 by 1.3 years and 0.9 years respectively. In the US last year, life expectancy at birth for males was 74.5 years and for females it was 80.2 years.

The abrupt fall was “catastrophic”, Mark Hayward, a University of Texas sociology professor who studies changes in US mortality, said.

The figures came as senior Republicans are speaking out to combat misinformation that is partly blamed for reluctance to take the vaccine in states under the party’s control.

The top 18 US states for adult vaccination rates were all won by President Joe Biden last year while 17 of the bottom 18 were won by Donald Trump.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, called for more Americans to get the vaccine. “These shots need to get in everybody’s arm as rapidly as possible or we’re going to be back in a situation in the fall that we don’t yearn for, that we went through last year,” he said at a weekly news conference.

Steve Scalise, of Louisiana, the second most senior Republican in the House who had long resisted vaccination, had his first jab at the weekend and urged others to follow suit.

“There shouldn’t be any hesitancy over whether or not it’s safe and effective,” Mr Scalise said.

Some influential Fox News presenters have also joined the conservative push to publicise vaccinations.

Jen Psaki, Mr Biden’s press secretary, confirmed that the White House had spoken to the main news networks. She said: “We’ve been in touch with every network and many media outlets about coverage of Covid-19 to make sure people have accurate information.”

THE TIMES