US life expectancy climbs in 2022 after COVID retreat

US life expectancy climbs in 2022 after COVID retreat

Reuters

November 29, 2023

U.S. babies born in 2022 gained roughly a year in life expectancy compared with babies born a year earlier, federal data showed on Wednesday, marking progress after two consecutive years of declines largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Life expectancy at birth for 2022 newborns was 77.5 years, up from 76.4 in 2021 but still lower than the 78.8 years expected for those born in 2019, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests. ... It will take “some time before we’re back to where we were in 2019, before the pandemic,” said Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report.

[Editor’s Note: For additional coverage, see “New CDC life expectancy data shows painfully slow rebound from covid“ in the Washington Post.]