U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020. That’s according to a new government report. In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. Fond du Lac County Public Health Officer Kim Mueller says when you think about the pandemic a lot of individuals had comorbidities. The last comparable decrease happened in the early 1940s, during the height of World War Two. The CDC reported the numbers Wednesday. COVID deaths were blamed for about half the decline in 2021. However there were also some other big contributors, including drug overdoses, heart disease, suicide and chronic liver disease.
