American Life Expectancy Sees Biggest Drop Since WWII, Erasing 20 Years Of Progress BY TYLER DURDEN for Zero Hedge
A few days ago, we reported the latest “stunning numbers” on American overdose deaths: more than 90K Americans died in 2020 of drug-related overdoses, with some 80% of those involving fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that has displaced heroin as the most commonly abused illicit opioid in the US.
These deaths, combined with the nearly 400K Americans who were killed by COVID last year, have officially led to the biggest drop in US life expectancy since WWII.
Support Our Site
Now is your chance to support Gospel News Network.
We love helping others and believe that’s one of the reasons we are chosen as Ambassadors of the Kingdom, to serve God’s children. We look to the Greatest Commandment as our Powering force.
Provisional 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.
We reported on the preliminary data a few months ago, but now that it’s been confirmed: Life expectancy in the US fell by 1.5 years in 2020, the biggest decline since at least World War II, as COVID killed indiscriminately, while the numbers of overdoses, homicides and other “deaths of despair” climbed.
“I myself had never seen a change this big 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 won’t rebound to pre-pandemic levels this year. It could decline again if the Delta variant causes new infections to flare up. What’s more, many people skipped or delayed treatment last year for diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions that could lead to more premature deaths.
“That has led to intermediate and longer-term effects we will have to deal with for years to come,” Donald Lloyd-Jones, chair of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and president of the American Heart Association, told WSJ.
COVID was the third-leading cause of death in the US last year, with heart disease and cancer remaining in the top spots. More deaths from homicide, diabetes and chronic liver disease also contributed to the drop in life expectancy.
Continue Reading / Zero Hedge >>>
