Life expectancy for the average American dropped by nearly two years in 2020, largely thanks to Covid-19, the latest federal mortality data shows.
The data also marks the greatest change in American lifespan since World War II. And Covid-19 is mainly responsible for the dramatic change. Over the last year, Covid-19 became the third-most common cause of death in the US, with one out of 10 fatalities caused by the virus.
Before the coronavirus vaccines were widely available last year, the life expectancy fell to 77 years, down 1.8 years from 78.8 years in 2019, the data shows.
The new mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics found that life expectancy dropped by 1.8 years in 2020 compared to 2019.
Death rates rose for every age group except children ages 1 to 14, with covid-19 becoming the third-leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease and cancer.
Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death for 350,831 people last year — 10.4 percent of the 3,383,729 deaths recorded.
More than 528,800 more Americans died in 2020 than in 2019.
Life expectancy has started to decline in recent years due to overdose deaths and suicides, but the pandemic has caused much steeper declines. The 1.8 year drop was the largest reduction in a single year in over 75 years.
Suicide fell from the top 10 causes of death in 2020, and was replaced by Covid-19.
The other top nine killers of Americans remained the same, though in some cases they changed order. They are: heart disease, cancer, covid-19, unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia and kidney disease.
The infant mortality rate also dropped 2.9 percent to a record low of 541.9 per 100,000 live births over the past year.
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