Living Long in the Land

By J.K. Wall - Posted at Gentle Reformation:

This week’s report by the FBI showing that murders spiked nearly 30% in the U.S. last year is the latest bit of confirmation for what we all know: a lot more people than usual lost their lives prematurely in 2020.

The FBI’s data add to the July report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which showed that Americans’ average life expectancy dropped by 18 months last year. More murders and more drug overdoses were factors, but three-quarters of the decline was due to COVID.

COVID has killed more Americans than died as a result of the entire Civil War. And even if you believe the COVID death toll has been inflated, cut the official statistics by half, and the disease has still killed more Americans than died fighting in World War 2. Worldwide, COVID has killed roughly 4.7 million people, and the pandemic is far from over.

The good news is that these declines—as serious as they are—are a blip compared to the tremendous gains in lifespans over the past century or so. As you can see in the chart below, life expectancies have been steadily rising across the entire world for at least 100 years. We’ve seen blips before—the last one with as much impact as COVID was, again, World War 2—but the rising trend has always kept going.

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