The pandemic's "over", but US life expectancy continues to fall. Why?

WaPo and other papers carried the grim news this morning that US life expectancy fell again in 2021, despite the many efforts to declare the pandemic “over” last year. Covid deaths were up over 2020, but they were joined by higher drug overdose deaths, in large part due to fentanyl. All progress made in raising life expectancy since 1996 has been erased. To quote WaPo, this is “a dismal benchmark for a reliable measure of health that should rise steadily in an affluent, developed nation.”

Yes, it should. And life expectancy did rise last year in many other affluent countries, although not all. But the US remains by far the leader in what I call obstinacy-motivated Covid deaths: deaths of people who are unvaccinated and unwilling to follow masking and other public health guidelines. Plus, that obstinacy seems to be continuing, since only about 14% of the eligible US population has received the Omicron-focused booster shot that came out earlier this fall – which has been proven to significantly reduce the chance that a person who is hospitalized with Covid will die from it, even vs. otherwise “fully vaccinated” individuals.

You need to get the new booster, if you haven’t yet. Especially if you’re in my age cohort. Even if people you know want to become part of this year’s death statistics, don’t feel you have to join them. They already have plenty of company.

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, December 18.

Month	Deaths reported during month/year	Avg. deaths per day during month/year	Deaths as percentage of previous month/year
Month of March 2020	4,058	131
Month of April 2020	59,812	1,994	1,474%
Month of May 2020	42,327	1,365	71%
Month of June 2020	23,925	798	57%
Month of July 2020	26,649	860	111%
Month of August 2020	30,970	999	116%
Month of Sept. 2020	22,809	760	75%
Month of Oct. 2020	24,332	785	107%
Month of Nov. 2020	38,293	1,276	157%
Month of Dec. 2020	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb. 2021	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March 2021	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April 2021	24,323	811	64%
Month of May 2021	19,843	661	82%
Month of June 2021	10,544	351	53%
Month of July 2021	8,833	287	84%
Month of August 2021	31,160	1,005	351%
Month of Sept. 2021	56,687	1,890	182%
Month of Oct. 2021	49,992	1,613	88%
Month of Nov. 2021	38,364	1,279	77%
Month of Dec. 2021	41,452	1,337	108%
Total 2021	492,756	1,350	158%
Month of Jan. 2022	65,855	2,124	159%
Month of Feb. 2022	63,451	2,266	96%
Month of March 2022	31,427	1,014	50%
Month of April 2022	13,297	443	42%
Month of May 2022	11,474	370	86%
Month of June 2022	11,109	370	97%
Month of July 2022	11,903	384	107%
Month of August 2022	16,199	540	136%
Month of September 2022	13,074	436	81%
Month of October 2022	12,399	400	95%
Month of November 2022	9,221	307	74%
Total Pandemic so far	1,112,970	1,097

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of Sunday:          1,112,970

Average daily deaths last seven days: 446

Average daily deaths previous seven days: 427

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.3%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 101,760,149          

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 435,261 (65,969/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 461,782 (65,969/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 0.4% (0.5% last week)

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.