U.S. sees worst life expectancy fall during COVID-19 era: WSJ

NEW YORK, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 pandemic has left Americans bruised in ways, and the country's performance has lagged behind other developed societies, for which the United States should think about how to do better the next time in the face of a pervasive threat to its people's well-being, reported The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Tuesday.

A report recently released by the National Center for Health Statistics revealed that during the peak pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, life expectancy in the United States -- the most basic measure of national well-being -- declined by a stunning 2.7 years, from 78.8 to 76.1 years, the lowest level since 1996, it said.

"Put simply, the pandemic erased the effects of a quarter-century of progress in medical innovation and healthier lifestyles," noted the Opinion article titled "Owning Up to America's Covid Pandemic Failures."

These losses weren't distributed evenly across the population. Life expectancy declined by 3.1 years for men but 2.3 years for women, and the overall difference between men and women widened from 4.8 years to just under 6 years, a gap last seen in the mid-1990s.

"Compared with its peers, the U.S. fared poorly during the past two years. In 2020 the U.S. loss of life expectancy was more than three times the average of other advanced nations," added the report.