“Although the introduction and availability of effective vaccines was expected to reduce US mortality rates by 2021, the slow absorption of vaccines and the spread of the Delta variant have led to large increases in mortality,” the researchers wrote. With one brief exception in the summer of 2021, Covid-19 has consistently been one of the top three causes of death in the last two years in the US, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In the decade before the pandemic, life expectancy in the United States changed by an average of less than 0.1 years per year, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Changes in life expectancy amid the Covid-19 pandemic have widened an existing gap between the US and other high-income countries, the new report shows. Among a total of 19 peer countries, life expectancy fell by only a third as much as in the US in 2020 (down 0.6 years, on average) and recovered in 2021, with an average increase of about 0.3 years. Life expectancy in the US dropped from 78.9 years in 2019 to 76.6 years in 2021 – now more than five years below the national average. “This speaks volumes about the impact on the way the US handled the pandemic,” said Dr. Steven Wolf, co-author of the study and co-director of the Center for Society and Health at the University of Virginia Commonwealth. “What happened in the United States is less about variants than levels of resistance to vaccination and rejection of public practices, such as coverage and mandates, to reduce the spread of the virus.” In the US, there was a disproportionate decline in life expectancy for blacks and Hispanics in 2020. But in 2021, whites had the biggest losses, with life expectancy remaining stable for Hispanics and rising slightly for blacks. For this study, Woolf and other researchers from the University of Colorado and the Urban Institute analyzed death data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the Human Mortality Database, and other international statistical organizations.
