The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the deflationary trends of falling birth and longevity rates, especially in the world’s largest consumer nation–America. The effects will last for years.
Life expectancy in the U.S. fell by 1.5 years in 2020, the biggest decline in decades, as Covid-19 killed hundreds of thousands and exacerbated the rise in drug overdoses, homicides and some chronic diseases. Life expectancy decreased an average of 0.22 years in other peer countries between 2018 and 2020.
U.S. longevity had been largely stagnant since 2010, declining in three of those years, due in part to an increase in deaths from drug overdoses. Heart disease-largely caused by diet and lifestyle–remains the nation’s leading killer. See the WSJ U.S. Life expectancy–the biggest decline in generations:
The full toll of the pandemic has yet to be seen, doctors and public-health officials said. Many people skipped or delayed treatment last year for conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure, and endured isolation, stress and interruptions in normal diet and exercise routines…
The pandemic also had an effect on births, as the number fell last year to the lowest level in more than four decades, continuing a fertility slump and likely showing that the spread of a deadly virus dissuaded some women from pregnancy.
;
