Losing time: Declining life expectancy is an indictment of American society

Not for a hundred years has there been such a pronounced drop in U.S. life expectancy, from 79 years in 2019 to 76 just two years later, in 2021, according to federal researchers. It’s easy to chalk this up entirely to the impact of COVID, and the virus was certainly the main culprit, but it would be wrong to suggest this dismaying trend is the result merely of forces out of our collective hands. The whole world was hit by the virus. But while most of our peers in Europe, Asia and Oceania have started recovering since the shock of the pandemic’s first year, America’s life expectancy has kept d...