A new study from the NYC Department of Health has revealed the toll that the pandemic took on New Yorkers: life expectancy dropped to 78 years between 2019 and 2020. That’s a decrease of nearly five years and a decline that is unheard of in the modern era.
But the drop wasn’t the same for all groups. The Department of Health says life expectancy among Black New Yorkers fell to 73 years, down five and a half years from 2019. Latino New Yorkers saw their average life expectancy fall by six years to age 77. White New Yorkers also saw their average life expectancy fall about three years to roughly age 80.
The blame has mostly been put on the shoulders of COVID-19.
The pandemic resulted in a mortality rate of 241.3 deaths per 100,000 population in 2020, which ranks among the worst in the cities’ history.
“The pain and trauma experienced by our city is still very real to so many of us,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan. “This report is an important record of what we’ve been through and all that we lost. It also reflects the importance of this moment. New Yorkers’ lifespans are falling, on top of years of relative flattening before COVID, and that cannot continue. It is the great challenge of our time, our city, and our Department to lay out an agenda for the next era of public health, to reverse these trends, and set us out on a new path where all New Yorkers can lead healthier, longer lives. We are putting every ounce of ourselves into achieving that goal, and honor the memory of those lost, as we do.”
People weren’t just succumbing to COVID. The virus made it harder for people to see treatment for other things.. Deaths from heart disease, for instance, were nearly 20% higher in 2020 than 2019.
“This is just the beginning of us understanding this data,” said Dr. Gretchen Van Wye, the department’s deputy commissioner for epidemiology. “This is just the beginning of many people studying this for a long time to really understand what happened.”
