CDC Says Life Expectancy In The U.S. Rose In 2022 Due To Fewer Covid-19 Deaths

The CDC says life expectancy in the US. increased between 2021 and 2022 after two years of declines related to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows life expectancy in the United States increased between 2021 and 2022 after two years of declines related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics report, the life expectancy, defined as the average age a person is expected to live, increased from 76.4 in 2021 to 77.5 in 2022

Although the increase is substantial, it does not compensate for the 2.4 year-drop in life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report.

ABC News reported that before this new increase in life expectancy, it had fallen to its lowest levels in 26 years.

When the pandemic started in early 2020, then-President Donald Trump predicted less than 100,000 people would die due to COVID-19. However, more than 1.1 million people have succumbed to the virus since the first lockdowns began.

The authors of the CDC report noted that although both sexes saw an increase in life expectancy between 2021 and 2022, men had a life expectancy increase of 1.3 years while women saw an increase of 0.9 years.

Life expectancy increased for every racial/ethnic group as well. The life expectancy of American Indians/Alaska Natives increased by 2.3 years. For Hispanic people, the life expectancy increased by 2.2 years, 1.6 years for the Black Americans, 1.0 years for Asian Americans and 0.8 years for White Americans.

In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 Pandemic, 350,831 Americans died from the virus, while 460,000 people died in 2021, and in 2022, 244,986 people died, according to the CDC.

The CDC additionally noted decreases in deaths from heart disease, unintentional injuries, cancer and homicides have helped increase life expectancy and life expectancy would have been even greater if not for increases in deaths due to influenza and pneumonia, perinatal conditions, kidney disease, nutritional deficiencies, and congenital malformations.