Thread by @bopinion

As the U.S. passes the half-million mark on Covid-19 deaths, it may seem unsurprising that life expectancy, in the first half of 2020, dropped by an entire year.

But shrinking American longevity is startling for reasons that extend beyond the pandemic trib.al/yWlUW6X

Life expectancy estimates based on mortality patterns from January - June 2020 show a decline in life expectancy at birth, compared to 2019:

📉1.2 years for males
📉0.9 years for females

And it was worse for Black Americans:

📉3 years
📉2.3 years trib.al/yWlUW6X

These declines stand to grow larger when the full-year data become available, because deaths from Covid-19 nearly doubled in the second half of 2020:

📆125,000 deaths from Jan. to June
📆Almost 250,000 from July to Dec trib.al/yWlUW6X

Overall, this has been the biggest drop since 1943. And for Black Americans, the decline is the largest since 1936.

The 2020 life expectancy numbers also underscore longer-term health challenges that were already alarming trib.al/yWlUW6X

For decades, life expectancy has been improving rapidly for higher earners compared to lower, and 2020 has probably made the gap worse.

The one pre-pandemic bright spot was a narrowing of racial differences. New estimates show a dramatic reversal of that trib.al/yWlUW6X

This lowering of life expectancy deviates from the pattern of former recessions. In other downturns, deaths rates have fallen as unemployment rates have gone up.

The 2008 financial crisis and the Great Depression both surprisingly boosted life expectancy trib.al/yWlUW6X

In stark comparison, 2020 mortality data indicate that death rates from non-Covid causes rose, despite the economic recession. Deaths exceeded projections in three major categories:

📈Diabetes
📈High blood pressure
📈Pneumonia
trib.al/yWlUW6X

Some of these deaths may have been misreported, and actually caused by Covid. But a large number may also reflect the challenges in non-Covid health-care.

The pandemic will provide hard lessons on which types of care truly improve health trib.al/yWlUW6X

The only good news in this otherwise heartbreaking landscape is that, in 2021, the Covid-19 death rate has been declining sharply, and is about a third lower than at the beginning of the year trib.al/yWlUW6X

Ideally, we will continue to drive the mortality rate lower via a combination of:

🚫Precaution
💉Vaccination
👩🏽‍⚕️Care

And other deaths should fall as health-care services return. After a very deadly 2020, a dramatic reversal would be a relief in 2021 trib.al/yWlUW6X