US life expectancy drops a year in pandemic, most since WWII

FILE - In this Friday, March 27, 2020 file photo, William Samuels delivers caskets to the Gerard Neufeld Funeral Home during the coronavirus pandemic in the Queens borough of New York. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 finds that life expectancy in the United States dropped a staggering one year during the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic caused its first wave of deaths. Minorities suffered the biggest impact, with Blacks losing nearly three years and Hispanics, nearly two years, according to preliminary estimates. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

FILE - In this Tuesday, April 7, 2020 file photo, gravedigger Thomas Cortez watches as a refrigerated trailer is delivered to keep pace with a surge of bodies arriving for burials, mostly those who died from coronavirus, at the Hebrew Free Burial Association's cemetery in the Staten Island borough of New York. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021 finds that life expectancy in the United States dropped a staggering one year during the first half of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic caused its first wave of deaths. Minorities suffered the biggest impact, with Blacks losing nearly three years and Hispanics, nearly two years, according to preliminary estimates. (AP Photo/David Goldman)