US Life Expectancy Drops by a Year Amid Pandemic, CDC Says

Gravedigger Thomas Cortez watches as a refrigerated trailer is delivered to keep pace with a surge of bodies arriving for burials, mostly those who died from COVID-19, at the Hebrew Free Burial Association's cemetery in the Staten Island borough of New York on April 7, 2020. David Goldman/AP Photo

Life expectancy in the United States dropped by a full year from 2019 to 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to provisional estimates released this week.

The expectancy at birth for the total population was 77.8 years in the first half of 2020, a decline from 78.8 in 2019, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers. The life expectancy for males fell by 1.2 years to 75.1 years, while female life expectancy declined by 0.9 years to 80.5.