The life expectancy has dropped for humans in every U.S. state, and the COVID-19 pandemic is what’s causing it.
According to a newly published report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every state in the United States saw a drop in U.S. citizens’ life spans. The report came from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and was released on Tuesday. It explores life expectancy data for 2020, which shows the overall life expectancy at birth is 77.0, a 1.8-year-decline from 2020’s lifespan for U.S. citizens, which previously was 78.8.
People who live in the Northeast and West had the highest lifespans compared to people living in the South, who have the lowest, according to the CDC. New York saw the most significant drop, going from a lifespan of 80.7 years to 77.7 years. The state with the smallest change was Hawaii, which went from a life expectancy of 80.9 years to 80.7 years.
“Overall, life expectancy in the United States declined by 1.8 years from 2019 to 2020, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increases in unintentional injuries (mainly drug overdose deaths),” the authors wrote ABC News reports.
