The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced yesterday that in 2021, for the second year in a row, average U.S. life expectancy declined, plunging it to the lowest level since 1996. In 2020, 1.8 years were shaved off life expectancy. Last year, the death rate increased by 5%, cutting life expectancy at birth to 76.4 years from 77, a drop of seven months. Covid-19 and opioid drug overdoses were the leading causes of death.
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that U.S. drug overdose deaths have risen fivefold over the past two decades. The surge in overdose deaths is explained by the fact that the powerful opioid fentanyl is now replacing heroin in many markets. The rate of drug fatalities involving synthetic opioids, not including methadone, increased 22% year on year.
For both years, nine out of ten leading causes of death were the same: heart disease was first, followed by cancer and Covid-19, which took 417,000 lives in 2021—an increase of 18.8%. Last August, in a preliminary report, the CDC indicated that in 2019, before the pandemic, life expectancy at birth was 78.8 years. The decline in 2020, to 77 years, was the largest since World War II, the Journal reported.
