According to Jean-François Delfraissy, who was the president of the Scientific Council in France during the health crisis, the Covid-19 has marked the United States more deeply than other developed countries. Even though the country has “enormously innovated, who found drugs, found to some extent vaccines”in particular that of the Pfizer laboratory, Jean-François Delfraissy notes that “This is where the loss of lifespan is much greater. They lost 2.6 years, while for example France lost 0.3 years.”
This statement is true. These are the conclusions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC, the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. According to them, life expectancy first fell very sharply in 2020, by 1.8 years, then there was a second drop last year of 0.9 years, or exactly 2.7 years less. . Last year, life expectancy for American women was around 79, and 73 for Americans. And still according to the CDC, to find such a significant drop, you have to go back almost a century, namely between 1921 and 1923.
In France, on the other hand, it is not at all so marked. This is what we see when we consult the INSEE figures for the same period. There was indeed a loss of life expectancy in 2020, but it is much lower than in the United States, and above all, it rose again the following year. In 2021, life expectancies were 85.4 years for women and 79.3 years for men. It has almost returned to the pre-pandemic level, since in 2019 it was 85.6 years for women and 79.7 years for men. And according to INSEE, the trend is the same throughout Western and Southern Europe.
According to an article by the researcher in demography Magali Barbieri published in the very famous British Medical Journal, it’s actually a long-term trend in the United States. The researcher cites in particular the latest figures from the WHO, the World Health Organization. In 2019, before the pandemic, American women were already 42nd in the world for life expectancy, and Americans 41st. According to Magali Barbieri, this situation can be explained by many factors: high obesity, social inequalities among others. In a 2021 report, the OECD also notes the low rate of full vaccination in the United States. As of November 1, 2021, only 57% of the US population had received their two doses.