Life Expectancy Took A Big Dive In 2020 Because Of COVID-19

ACROSS AMERICA — U.S. life expectancy has declined by nearly two years, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Nationally, life expectancy dropped to 77 years in 2020, down from 78.8 in 2019. No state saw an increase in life expectancy in 2020.

COVID-19 is behind the largest spike in mortality in 100 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death nationwide in 2020, killing more than 300,000 people.

In eight states — New York, Louisiana, New Jersey, Arizona, Mississippi, New Mexico, Illinois and Texas — and the District of Columbia, life expectancy fell by more than two years. In New York, life expectancy was cut by three years.

Several states saw life expectancy decrease by less than a year, including Hawaii, where COVID-19 shaved only two months off a person’s life. Other states in that group were New Hampshire (four months), Maine (five months), and Washington and Oregon (both eight months).

The states with the highest life expectancy in 2020 are Hawaii (80.7 years), Washington (79.2 years), Minnesota (79.1 years), and California, Massachusetts and New Hampshire (79 years).

The states with the lowest life expectancy in 2020 are from Southern states, including Mississippi (71.9 years), West Virginia (72.8 years), Louisiana (73.1 years), Alabama (73.2 years) and Kentucky (73.5 years).

Dr. Robert Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics, told NBC News the trend could continue when the 2021 report is issued, because COVID-19 deaths continued to increase that year.

“We really haven’t really seen anything like this since the 1918 flu pandemic,” he told the network.

After the flu outbreak, the average life expectancy fell from 50.9 years in 1917 to 39.1 years in 1918, he said.