U.S. life expectancy plummets amid pandemic

[DonViejo]

“This is a huge decline,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees the numbers for the CDC. “You have to go back to World War II, the 1940s, to find a decline like this.”

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

02/18/2021 06:24 AM EST

Life expectancy in the United States dropped a staggering one year during the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic caused its first wave of deaths, health officials are reporting.

Minorities suffered the biggest impact, with Black Americans losing nearly three years and Hispanics, nearly two years, according to preliminary estimates Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is a huge decline,” said Robert Anderson, who oversees the numbers for the CDC. “You have to go back to World War II, the 1940s, to find a decline like this.”

Other health experts say it shows the profound impact of COVID-19, not just on deaths directly due to infection but also from heart disease, cancer and other conditions.

more
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/18/us-life-expectancy-plummets-pandemic-469738

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. "Life expectancy is how long a baby born today can expect to live, on average"

That's not a good definition, because it could leave you wondering why the pandemic today has such an effect. It's how long a baby born today could expect to live on average if all parts of its life were lived in today's conditions. So it's affected by how many newborns survived over the previous year to age 1, how many 1 year olds survived to 2, and so on.

So for a baby born today, it's assuming that by the time it really gets to 79, its chances of surviving to 80 will be the same as a 79 year old today surviving to 80. It doesn't try to extrapolate trends in better (or worse) survival, and it doesn't revert to "normal" conditions outside a pandemic or other event, for any subsequent age.