This is still a preprint study, and needs peer review, but the initial findings of this study show that US life expectancy fell again in 2021, by about 0.40 years, and equates a net drop of just over 2 1/4 years in the past two. It also shows that the major source of the drop in 2021 was in non-Hispanic whites (Hispanic was virtually unchanged, and Black actually increased a bit).

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.05.22273393v1%20

Uh, covid?

Exactly.

probably this

covid crowding out other types of elderly care and hospital visits prob also played a role

I don't know if vaccination rates can explain the differences based on race, as Black life expectancy went up, but they've lagged behind in vaccination rates (at least, through numbers from around October or so). My initial guess would probably trend toward geographic regions with fewer restrictions in place, with other factors balancing things out in other areas.

I think its more concerning that the US decline is so much greater than the 19 peer countries they compared us to who also went through the pandemic.

On the surface, it's very telling as far as pandemic response goes.

I'm not sure that's true, Sweden basically scrapped all covid measures and rebounded in life expectancy 2020 to 2021. If I had to guess, we're just an unhealthy country already as shown by our significantly lower average life expectancy in 2019 compared to the other 19 countries, and covid hit us harder cause we're a nation of fat fucks who drive everywhere. Actually on reread, basically all the peer countries had a life expectancy rebound compared to the US. Only NZ and Israel had a drop 2020 to 2021 along with the US.

This post was edited by Sioux on Apr 7 2022 12:42pm

A reasonably competent government (at federal, state, and local levels) would have taken the fact that we're a nation of fat fucks into account and used appropriate measures based on the relative health of the nation as a whole. Instead, they couldn't get their shit straight at multiple levels, and here's where we are.

Thats all true. I'm not saying the drop isn't due to covid, it 100% is but there's just more nuance than its a pandemic.