Longevity is a key aspect of what we try to do on this show. I can’t tell you a whole lot about how to live a good life. But I assume we will find a way to do that, and that life will be so good that we’ll want it to last as long as possible. We do that, by loving our lives and taking care of them.

Longevity, as an average, generally increases over time, at least in recent times. One way you can see this is to go to the actuarial tables of the social security administration in the U.S. Currently, on the website, only the data from 2004 to 2017 are available in an easy to digest table, and there is more if you dig deeper and know something about statistics, going back to 1900. At birth, someone born in 2017 is expected to live 80.96 years. Someone born in 1900 was likely to live only into his or her late 40’s. When I was born in 1966 the number was into the late ’60s. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to die in my 60’s, because with each year you live (or more accurately don’t die), you increase your life expectancy. So that today, statistically, on my birthday in 2017, the year I started this show, I was expected to live another 28.82 years, to the age of 79.82. And I have no doubt increased that in the ensuing 4 years. In other countries, I think records may have been better over 121 years ago. In this country, we were generally a bunch of protestant farmers for most of our history, most of whom could not read or write. We have a lot of listeners in other countries though, and I’d love to hear from you on the life expectancy in your own country, leave a comment at runningafever.com.

Now all this is very interesting, but today what I’m trying to bring to light is how serious the COVID-19 pandemic impact has been. Millions of people, over 100 years of progress, and now all that has changed.

An article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. As an aside, the academy has its own podcast called Science Sessions. The article contends that COVID-19 will reduce U.S. life expectancy in 2020 by 1.13 years. It also says that the reduction will disproportionately affect black and Latino populations. Blacks have a lower life expectancy than whites, and Latinos have a higher life expectancy than whites. If you are from another country, just understand that Americans are obsessive about race. But if the study of these stats helps improve life expectancy I’m all for it.

So in a normal year, let’s just pick 2001, we have 867.1 deaths per 100,000 people, that’s 8 tenths of 1 percent. The PNAS info was based on projections in the middle of 2020. The number of cases increased dramatically in the fall, along with the number of deaths. Overall, over 351,000 people died of the disease last year. The overall number of deaths and population is not available, but I would expect the actual numbers to be worse than what the article predicts. Macrotrends.net predicts a .00897% death rate for 2020, an increase of 1.12%. And it’s expected to be worse in 2021.

What I didn’t tell you before was that we had a reversal of the general trend of an increase in life expectancy in this country starting in 2014. 2019 saw the first increase in 6 years. Why?

2 key contributors are suicide and drug overdose. As of 2017, suicide is listed as the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S, accounting for 1.7% of annual deaths as of 2019. Worldwide it is 15th. Drug overdose is the 9th leading cause, worldwide it is 25th. The rate of drug overdose in this country is the highest of any country, and almost twice that of Libya, which is #2 on this list.

But the hope of 2019 was smashed by the coming of COVID-19 at the end of that year. In 2020 over 351,000 people died of COVID, which will probably make it the 3rd leading cause of death. And as of January of 2021, it is the leading cause of death in terms of daily average deaths.

While we’ve come a long way since 1918, the year the flu killed over 600,000 people in this country, several times the number of deaths from WWI. But obviously, we haven’t conquered disease. When that many people die, it has an impact not only at the present but for years into the future. Longevity is just one way to look at it. But what about the economic and social implications? Those of us who were able to stay home were impacted psychologically by this. And I would not be surprised to see an increase in suicides and drug overdoses as leading causes of death.

And what I get from all this, most of all is the lack of control we have over the world. We try very hard to control it, we strive for technology to change our environment and protect ourselves from harm. But in the end, our efforts, though certainly worthwhile, are very small compared to the strength and power of the natural world in which we live.

Deep thoughts. But we struggle on in our small way to love our lives and increase their duration. Most of the leading causes of death are preventable even by our own small efforts. So let’s get back to work.

This episode is the result of hours of research and I give credit to a number of sources, which you can find at runningafever.com/252.

Catch the fever! And if you already have it, keep that fire going. And I’ll talk to you next time on Running: A FEVER.

References:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/before-covid-19-u-s-life-expectancy-was-making-a-slight-rebound
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/5/e2014746118
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=2020+covid+deaths&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS870US870&oq=2020+covid+deaths&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l9.4687j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/death-rate
https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20181210lifeexpectdrop.html
https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/slide/covid-19-now-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-united-states/
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/cumulative-cases
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html