Max, one of the interesting things in your article is this:
The declines in life expectancy since 2019 are largely driven by the pandemic. COVID-19 deaths contributed to nearly three-fourths or 74% of the decline from 2019 to 2020 and 50% of the decline from 2020 to 2021. An estimated 16% of the decline in life expectancy from 2020 to 2021 can be attributed to increases in deaths from accidents/unintentional injuries. Drug overdose deaths account for nearly half of all unintentional injury deaths. The most recent data reported by NCHS showed more than 109,000 overdose deaths in the one-year period ending in March of 2022.Again, I think there are multiple reasons but have you read the reports on excess deaths during and after COVID? That's some interesting stuff and still being analyzed.
The stats on fentanyl deaths are staggering too.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/895945/fentanyl-overdose-deaths-us/Unlike past drug use spikes, this one is almost 100% coming from the outside. People used to cook meth here, but fentanyl is coming in by the truck load through Mexico, ingredients courtesy of China. It's a big problem and one that hurts a lot of innocent people because the stuff is so toxic you can be poisoned just by touching something that has fentanyl on it.
Other things, like infant and maternal deaths, and some lifestyle diseases we can't really use in the stats because people who come in from other countries often have not had good healthcare or healthcare at all, so they should be excluded from these stats.
