COVID Reduced US Life Expectancy By Over One Year and Latinos by Three Years

In Mid-October, 2020 (when the US had 215000 COVID deaths), COVID had caused a reduction in US life expectancy at birth of 1.13 y to 77.48 y, lower than any year since 2003. There was a 0.87-y reduction in life expectancy at age 65 y. The Black and Latino populations are estimated to experience declines in life expectancy at birth of 2.10 and 3.05 y, respectively, both of which are several times the 0.68-y reduction for Whites.

Black life expectancy would shorten by 2.10 years to 72.78 years, and for Latinos, by 3.05 years to 78.77 years.

Whites are also impacted, but their projected decline is much smaller — 0.68 years — to a life expectancy of 77.84 years.

SOURCES- PNAS – Reductions in 2020 US life expectancy due to COVID-19 and the disproportionate impact on the Black and Latino populations
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

37 thoughts on “COVID Reduced US Life Expectancy By Over One Year and Latinos by Three Years”

  1. It is only about 2% less than California. And if most of the people dying were smokers, we probably would have noticed. 
    Kentucky also has a lot of smokers but 42nd in death rate while 29th in number of cases.

    But the evidence for my hypothesis was not spectacular either. We would certainly need to see that those that got very sick or died drank more on average. If that is not true, then the idea is rubbish.

  2. Yes, also way more people died from the flu in the last years
    https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/the-cdc-influenza-math-doesnt-add-up-exaggerating-death-toll-to-sell-flu-shots/
    https://aspe.hhs.gov/cdc-%E2%80%94-influenza-deaths-request-correction-rfc

    Yeah, lets all pretend that all "covid deaths" are CAUSED by covid. At best people are positive for the virus, sometimes just the suspetion is enough for the "medical diagnoses".

    Also, the "confirmed cases" and "cases per million" are completely legit. Firstly the "confirmed cases" are inflated, the WHO only now seems to know this… https://www.who.int/news/item/20-01-2021-who-information-notice-for-ivd-users-2020-05
    https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/90508

    AND, the number of INFECTED people is higher than the "confirmed cases", so the death rate is lower than when they just calculate it with the "covid deaths" and the "confirmed cases".

    AND, a confirmed case = positive test. Sometimes individuals are tested multiple times and get multiple positive test results, this has influence in the mAtH and when comparing the non standarized infections per million or per 100 000 (the criteria is whatever country decides).

    AND, many more people died just because they did't have medical care, fewer likely died because of covid in the excess deaths because the critera is so wide.

    And stupid scientifc articles making up stuff https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774465

    And https://c19study.com

  3. Actually, natural selection only works on those who are still procreating. 
    As this disease hits older people, it is unlikely there will be much change in the gene pool from these behavioral phenotypes…if indeed any of it is genetically based. So Social Darwinists and the proudest of the insensitive Libertarians will have to get their jollies some other way…maybe watching auto accidents on YouTube, or old Cops reruns.

  4. Its far from nonsense, its just that you don't understand.

    In 2020 more people died at a younger age than in previous years, hence the life expectancy average is lower.

  5. Covid doesn't really select against stupid and poor, not very well, because the very low death rate adds such a huge random factor to the selection process.
    A super spreader individual (whether because of behaviours that aren't their fault, such as living in a crowded house, or behaviours that are their fault, such as going to 15 parties a week and spending the rest of their days in restaurants, cafes and getting their hair styled each morning) is much more likely to cause someone ELSE to die, than die themselves.

    Still, it's funny to see the almost inverse correlation between people who blame personal behaviour for spreading Covid, and those who do so for HIV.

  6. This was my comment, in case the petty people want to make sure you down-vote everything I say about Covid. Don't know why it sometimes removes my handle.

  7. Changes due to demographic changes are always already figured into the expected deaths. And obviously the same measures we have imposed to slow Covid-19 are also greatly reducing the spread of the flu. Heart Disease, Alzheimer's? You are just making up stories. 
    The weekly report is not considering excess deaths in the Covid totals as they can only count those who tested positive and died of Covid. Those that did not test positive because they had no tests could only be "suspected" or "flu-like".

    Examine this graph of general deaths: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/01152021/images/nchs-mortality-report.gif?noicon
    And compare that with the "Daily New Deaths in the United States" of Covid-19 graph here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
    The second one is missing the amplitude of the spike at the beginning of the year. It is quite a bit lower than the spike on the right. The obvious explanation is that they did not have the tests early on, so these victims did not get included in the official Covid deaths totals. And you can't just chalk that up to flu because the flu seasons of previous years are right there on the graph. And that 2017-2018 flu season was a VERY bad one. That barely registers in comparison. I had to go to emergency for a cat bite infection during that outbreak. There were over 70 people waiting to be seen and it took over 5 hours for them to get to me.

    No, the official totals are low not high.

  8. Nonsense. I have the CDC 2019-2020 weekly death data updated last Friday.

    2,852,609 deaths 2019
    3,258,883 deaths 2020
    +406,274

    The yearly increase is 2% due to population growth. An additional 50k deaths were already expected this year. So, +356,274.

    About 66% were attributed directly to covid. +235,140 but that is obviously a lie, considering it appears covid has cured the flu, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. So at best using their own fraudulent numbers you are at 235k, but is going to obviously be lower. The illegal lockdowns are likely to blame for much more than 1/3 of the deaths.

    Lol at this statement "The largest percentage increases were seen among adults aged 25–44 years and among Hispanic or Latino persons."

    You always get huge percentage increases when going from almost nothing to almost nothing.

  9. Not all States have as young of a population of Latinos.

    "The Hispanic population growth since 1990 has been due to in-migration of individuals heavily concentrated between the ages of 15 and 29 and births. As a consequence, North Carolina’s Hispanic population is very young. In 2012, the median age in North Carolina was 37.8. Among North Carolina’s Hispanics, the median age was 24.7, meaning half of the state’s Hispanic population was younger than 24.7." 
    https://www.ncdemography.org/2014/10/07/north-carolinas-hispanic-population/

    The median age of Latinos in the US is 30. So they are 5.3 years younger in North Carolina.

    And regardless of the narrative, those 70 and older are the people getting the vaccines.

  10. Actually, there were around 100,000 more deaths than official Covid figures. You can see this from excess deaths. "Overall, an estimated 299,028 excess deaths occurred from late January through October 3, 2020, with 198,081 (66%) excess deaths attributed to COVID-19. The largest percentage increases were seen among adults aged 25–44 years and among Hispanic or Latino persons." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm#F1_down
    This was months ago, so you have to look at the figures they were presenting back then. That was about 200,000.
    Now, the additional 100,000 are not all because of infection, there were probably more suicides, and domestic violence. And there are people drinking too much who would not have otherwise, and people who did not get treated for something they otherwise would have. But they are from Covid just not necessarily directly…unless you can point out some other natural disaster that can account for the excess deaths.
    And if you will recall, early on we had very few tests. I suspect they did not waste many tests on the dead.

  11. How does covid reduce life expectancy at birth!? So a child born today will live 1-2 years less because of a pandemic that will probably be over in a few months. That is nonsensical.

  12. Hepa filters and Lysol probably do as well. But it is unlikely these approaches work…especially if you have a small home. It is just too much time with an exposed person.
    Better is probably going to a hotel but many places shutdown the hotels.
    Men under 50 and women under 60 are mostly doing ok with this infection, especially if you don't have any of the common comorbidities. If there is someone older in the house, I think if you are positive, just find somewhere else to stay for a bit, even if that is a vehicle, if weather permits…or somewhere safer for them.
    People can choose to be more or less cautious…that is life. I try to stay on the more cautious side. And I certainly don't want my carelessness to be responsible for the death of a loved one or anyone. I have a room in my garage, maybe I should look into setting it up as a quarantine in case I get sick. It has a toilet, but it has not worked in years because a supply pipe broke. I could fix that and insulate and such.
    I am not likely to be eligible for a vaccine anytime soon. And even if I was, it takes time for that to become effective. It will probably be July or August before I am protected.

  13. I noticed something today looking at the stats. Utah has a far lower mortality rate relative to cases compared to other States. My suspicion is that alcohol is a factor. I think we need to stop drinking to reduce the fatalities. That also may explain why some Muslim countries are having lower mortality.
    You would think that the Russians would be a counter example, but their own health people confirm that they are calculating different and that the deaths are far higher than official numbers (something I suspected and was down-voted for mentioning). https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/29/world/russia-coronavirus-figures-higher-than-official-numbers-intl/index.html
    Utah has 473 deaths per 1m. But it has the third highest number of cases per 1m at 102,428. This is 1/4 the deaths as other States at a similar number of cases. And I don't think it can be attributed to increased testing in Utah, as these other States at a comparable level of identified cases have tested roughly the same or more. Rhode Island for example has done more than twice as much testing, but they have 1,934 deaths per 1m population, with 101,831cases per 1m.
    If alcohol is a problem, the advise Fauci and others have been giving is quite harmful: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/dr-fauci-reports-that-alcohol-may-help-people-survive-coronavirus-briefings
    Utah is unique as it has far less drinking than any other State due to the Mormon contingent.
    Of course, there could be something else responsible.

  14. I think this virus targets human's gregarious instincts. We simply can't live nor stand being without close contact with others. The same as the bats this bugger most likely came from.

    And poor people has the additional disadvantage of not being able to self isolate, having to get out of home to work and get food to scrape by every day.

    Poverty is always a disease vector, unfortunately.

    But lack of mask use was mostly a political/ideological decision.

  15. You are correct about this pandemic, but my questions still stand for the next SARS family viral debutante. We need to identify the gaps and work to plug them. I have no expectation that the heavily politized Health Care bureaucracy has any incentive to do so after they saw their leadership treated as demi-gods for the last year despite cycles of contradictory recommendations.

  16. I am not saying vitamin D is not a reasonable precaution. I am just saying don't put your faith in that being enough. Take it, but assume it does not work, and take all the other precautions you otherwise would.

    It also would be nice if they would survey people and find out how many people are taking it. If the ravaged cities and towns are taking it, obviously it is far from sufficient.

  17. I'm not that mean.

    But certainly hygiene practices are taken more seriously by some than others. And people also vary in how much they pay attention to the public health system, how much they'd bother to interface with a government bureaucracy for an equipment rental, or how well they'd take care of equipment to maintain their deposit.

    I strongly suspect all these factors correlate. And the people who are consciousness about all of the above, are also conscientious about social distancing and face masks.

  18. You mean that Covid works as a natural selection against stupid and poor people? That is an interesting observation.

  19. We're just not that competent and responsible.

    Or at least, the people who are, are the ones who mostly aren't getting covid.

  20. By the time any policies are implemented to
    "close the gap" the crisis will be over. Let's just focus on vaccine distribution.

  21. Blacks and Latinos just got it sooner than the rest, in my opinion. I think there is little to no evidence that they are more likely to have a poor outcome upon exposure than anyone else. They work paycheck to paycheck and generally in jobs where risk of exposure is higher. Also, I admit my perception is my own but it seems to me that they are much more casual with mask wearing. Often noses are poking out or they just are not wearing them.
    Larger families also greatly increases the risk that one person will cause everyone else in the family to be exposed. Each additional person in the household means that much more risk of bringing it home.
    They are also much more likely to need to use public transportation to get places. And clearly this increases the risk of exposure.
    And to some extent they tend to know less about how to avoid catching it. Proper handling of masks etc.

    If one looks at small isolated populations of mostly Whites, you see that some get a lot of cases and indeed have high death rates. Others have next to none. For example 1 in 120 people died in Grove Co. Kansas. And I am not saying 1 in 120 people that caught it. 1 in 120 of the population. 97.95% White. It just progressed faster there with people unwilling to wear masks and such. And officially only 1 in 7 people even caught it. Though, who knows, that might be 2 or 3 times higher.

    If you think being White and getting a bit of sun is going to protect you, I see no evidence. 

    Vaccine is the best hope.

  22. If you actually look at the CDC death data it is only 200k deaths. 400k comes from the hospitals getting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars per case. It ended up being about twice as bad as the 2018 flu season.

  23. There are of course a variety of factors involved but I think it also has a lot to do with the lack of Vitamin D. Darker and older skin makes less vitamin D. Vit. D protects the upper respiratory system and helps your immune system to work optimally. There are clinical trials to prove that. It is cheap and available in every drug store. It is nearly impossible to overdose, and even then the negative effects are mild and reverse readily if you stop taking it.

  24. I can't get over the notion that we could could curb the pandemic by using simple out of the box measures.
    How about placing Humidifiers and UV-C lighting, better ventilation and disinfectants at homes of quarantined people where other people lives.
    Most transmissions happen at home.
    These devices can be placed only where space may be shared, like in the kitchen and bathroom. They can be placed for a credit card deposit and returned when they are no longer needed.
    If done right it can have a very significant impact on the rate of infection.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/japan-supercomputer-shows-humidity-affects-110408375.html

  25. Here in North Carolina the State's Covid19 dashboard shows that Hispanics made up 27% of the cases but only 9% of the deaths.

    Hispanic mortality rate is 1/3rd that of non-Hispanics.

  26. How closely do the declines track to (1) presence of common co-morbidities among the population, (2) income distribution within the population as a proxy for access to health care, (3) private/public healthcare distribution by population and (4) urban/rural population distribution by population ? Those are the questions which need to be addressed in order to determine what policies may help in closing the gap. For example there is a correlation between percentage of minorities on public healthcare and the decrease in life expectancy, then a policy should revisit the definition of the 'Bronze, Silver and Gold' tiers that the ACA put in place. Similarly, if the rural/urban split has a significant correlation, then funding should be targeted appropriately.

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