07-22-2021, 02:53 PM
The Centers for Disease Control give us a partial report... because the story is not yet fully complete.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR015-508.pdf
(Read the source material if you want to see something more legible and connect to links).
Some conclusions that I draw (again, read the source material, as it ill serves cutting and pasting):
1. It may surprise many of us that Hispanic populations have overtaken non-Hispanic whites, let alone blacks, in life expectancy. That may reflect culture. Hispanic culture seems much more optimistic and life-affirming than the non-Hispanic mainstream.
I once said facetiously that if I had my way I would let the Central Americans who fled countries ravaged by turf wars by drug cliques in America under remain in America under one condition: that they would take in the children of America's largely-white meth fiends as their own. Meanwhile I would deport America's addicts so that they could experience first-hand the consequences of their supplying of blood money to those drug cliques. Think of what the illegal aliens would get; as parents of US citizens they would be on the fast track to citizenship. They would impart a far more wholesome culture upon children who don't live near meth anymore. For the children they would get a true bilingual experience, and that would be good for everyone involved. Nothing teaches more about one's own language than does learning a foreign language. (Of course no other country wants our drug-addled trash, so therein lies a problem). But being brought up Hispanic and drug-free is far better than being raised by parents who look like one but can't shake off meth... right! This is less shocking than Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal.
2. So what causes the higher life expectancy among Hispanic-Americans despite being poorer as a whole? First, not smoking as much. The second-lowest state in the percentage of smokers is California, which has a surprisingly-large Mormon population (that is part of it; Utah is 51st among the States and the federal district in consumption of tobacco products, and California is a distant 50th), and Hispanics account for much of the low smoking rate in California. Not smoking offsets the effects of air pollution in infamously-smoggy L.A. Texas, which has some very poor populations as in states to its east from Oklahoma in the west to North Carolina and Georgia in the east, is below average in tobacco use and the states to its east are all above average. (Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia fit this pattern, too of poverty and heavy smoking). Texas Hispanics, largely Mexican-Americans, are really-light smokers. That explains much. Another factor is that Hispanics have more tightly-knit communities. One is not alone, which explains how Mexican-Americans were much less-likely than others to die during a heat wave in Chicago in 2015. Someone was looking out for elderly Hispanics to make sure that they had fans and could keep their windows open. Blacks and poor whites often got neglected... and died for that neglect.
3. The strengths of Hispanic communities depend upon them being close to each other. With COVID-19 that may have been too close in housing, let alone many workplaces (as in food-processing places in which many of them work) or in the hospitality business and retailing in which they see everyone, infected or not. COVID-19 ravaged Hispanics as it did not ravage non-Hispanic whites or even blacks. Non-Cuban Hispanics vote heavily Democratic irrespective of economic status, and if they endured a disproportionate number of deaths from COVID-19, then that made have made the 2020 vote closer in Arizona and Nevada than many of us expected.
4. Declines in life expectancy by ethnicity and gender were as follows:
Hispanic male -3.7
non-Hispanic black male -3.3
Non-Hispanic black female -2.4
Hispanic female -2.0
non-Hispanic white male -1.3
non-Hispanic white female -1.1
Political consequences are possible and even likely. This may have made elections in Arizona (Hispanics), Georgia (blacks), Michigan (blacks), Nevada (Hispanics), Pennsylvania (blacks), and Wisconsin (blacks) closer than one might have expected in January 2020. COVID-19 might have made a difference in Florida and North Carolina, which many liberals thought might go D. Texas, which has large numbers of blacks and Hispanics, might have been much closer without COVID-19. Most deaths were of people of voting age, so political effects would be felt in 2020.
I'm not accusing anyone of political manipulation. COVID-19 certainly disenfranchised black and Hispanic voters discriminatorily, whether the effect was design or accident. Draw whatever conclusions you wish.
5. People may have been dying of COVID-19 instead of something else, like cancer, strokes, HIV, cirrhosis, diabetes, or dementia. For people in weakened conditions, COVID-19 might have been the official killer on a death certificate -- but COVID-19 dwarfs those causes combined.
6, The most obvious limitation on this study is time. We do not know what effects will arise in the future, but they cannot be good. Maybe the distribution of vulnerable people will change from 2020 to 2021. COVID-19 survivors often endure complications that themselves shorten life. Compromised organs and brains will cause trouble for decades among relatively-young survivors. Diabetes is a multi-organ plight. If COVID-19 does not kill outright it can still shorten life.
.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR015-508.pdf
Quote:Provisional Life Expectancy Estimates for 2020 Elizabeth Arias, Ph.D., Betzaida Tejada-Vera, M.S., Farida Ahmad, M.P.H., and Kenneth D. Kochanek, M.A. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention • National Center for Health Statistics • National Vital Statistics System NCHS reports can be downloaded from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/index.htm. Introduction The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) collects and disseminates the nation’s official vital statistics through the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). NCHS uses provisional vital statistics data for conducting public health surveillance and final data for producing annual national natality and mortality statistics. NCHS publishes annual and decennial national life tables based on final vital statistics. To assess the effects on life expectancy of excess mortality observed during 2020, NCHS published provisional life expectancy estimates for the months January through June, 2020 in February 2021 (1). This report presents updated estimates of life expectancy based on provisional mortality data for the full year, January through December, 2020. Provisional data are early estimates based on death certificates received, processed, and coded, but not finalized, by NCHS. These estimates are considered provisional because death certificate information may later be revised, and additional death certificates may be received until approximately 6 months after the end of the year. This report presents life expectancy estimates calculated using abridged period life tables based on provisional death counts for 2020, by sex, for the total, Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, and non-Hispanic black populations. Estimates for the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN), Asian, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI) populations were not produced due to the impact of race and ethnicity misclassification on death certificates for these populations on the precision of life expectancy estimates (2). There are two types of life tables: the cohort (or generation) and the period (or current) life table. The cohort life table presents the mortality experience of a particular birth cohort from the moment of birth through consecutive ages in successive calendar years. The period life table does not represent the mortality experience of an actual birth cohort but rather presents what would happen to a hypothetical cohort if it experienced throughout its entire life the mortality conditions of a particular period. Period life expectancy estimates based on final data for 2019 by sex, Hispanic origin, and race are also provided in this report for purposes of comparison (see Technical Notes and reference 3 for description of methodology). Unlike the previous estimates based on 6 months of data, this full-year report presents contributions of causes of death to the changes in life expectancy using a life table partitioning technique (see Technical Notes). Keywords: life expectancy • Hispanic origin • race • cause of death • National Vital Statistics System Data and Methods Provisional life expectancy estimates were calculated using abridged period life tables based on provisional death counts for 2020 from death records received and processed by NCHS as of May 13, 2021; provisional numbers of births for the same period based on birth records received and processed by NCHS as of April 7, 2021; and, July 1, 2020, monthly postcensal population estimates based on the 2010 decennial census. Provisional mortality rates are typically computed using death data after a 3-month lag following date of death, as completeness and timeliness of provisional death data can vary by many factors, including cause of death, month of the year, and age of the decedent (4,5). Mortality data used in this report include over 99% of the deaths that occurred in 2020, but certain jurisdictions and age groups may be underrepresented for later months (5). Deaths requiring investigation, including infant deaths, deaths from external injuries, and drug overdose deaths may be underestimated (6,7). See Technical Notes for more information about the calculation of the abridged period life tables, 2019 life expectancy estimates by race and Hispanic origin, and life table partitioning by cause of death. Results Life expectancy in the United States The Table summarizes life expectancy by age, Hispanic origin, race, and sex. Life expectancy at birth represents the average number of years a group of infants would live if they were to experience throughout life the agespecific death rates prevailing during a specified period. In 2020, life expectancy at birth for the total U.S. population
(Read the source material if you want to see something more legible and connect to links).
Some conclusions that I draw (again, read the source material, as it ill serves cutting and pasting):
1. It may surprise many of us that Hispanic populations have overtaken non-Hispanic whites, let alone blacks, in life expectancy. That may reflect culture. Hispanic culture seems much more optimistic and life-affirming than the non-Hispanic mainstream.
I once said facetiously that if I had my way I would let the Central Americans who fled countries ravaged by turf wars by drug cliques in America under remain in America under one condition: that they would take in the children of America's largely-white meth fiends as their own. Meanwhile I would deport America's addicts so that they could experience first-hand the consequences of their supplying of blood money to those drug cliques. Think of what the illegal aliens would get; as parents of US citizens they would be on the fast track to citizenship. They would impart a far more wholesome culture upon children who don't live near meth anymore. For the children they would get a true bilingual experience, and that would be good for everyone involved. Nothing teaches more about one's own language than does learning a foreign language. (Of course no other country wants our drug-addled trash, so therein lies a problem). But being brought up Hispanic and drug-free is far better than being raised by parents who look like one but can't shake off meth... right! This is less shocking than Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal.
2. So what causes the higher life expectancy among Hispanic-Americans despite being poorer as a whole? First, not smoking as much. The second-lowest state in the percentage of smokers is California, which has a surprisingly-large Mormon population (that is part of it; Utah is 51st among the States and the federal district in consumption of tobacco products, and California is a distant 50th), and Hispanics account for much of the low smoking rate in California. Not smoking offsets the effects of air pollution in infamously-smoggy L.A. Texas, which has some very poor populations as in states to its east from Oklahoma in the west to North Carolina and Georgia in the east, is below average in tobacco use and the states to its east are all above average. (Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia fit this pattern, too of poverty and heavy smoking). Texas Hispanics, largely Mexican-Americans, are really-light smokers. That explains much. Another factor is that Hispanics have more tightly-knit communities. One is not alone, which explains how Mexican-Americans were much less-likely than others to die during a heat wave in Chicago in 2015. Someone was looking out for elderly Hispanics to make sure that they had fans and could keep their windows open. Blacks and poor whites often got neglected... and died for that neglect.
3. The strengths of Hispanic communities depend upon them being close to each other. With COVID-19 that may have been too close in housing, let alone many workplaces (as in food-processing places in which many of them work) or in the hospitality business and retailing in which they see everyone, infected or not. COVID-19 ravaged Hispanics as it did not ravage non-Hispanic whites or even blacks. Non-Cuban Hispanics vote heavily Democratic irrespective of economic status, and if they endured a disproportionate number of deaths from COVID-19, then that made have made the 2020 vote closer in Arizona and Nevada than many of us expected.
4. Declines in life expectancy by ethnicity and gender were as follows:
Hispanic male -3.7
non-Hispanic black male -3.3
Non-Hispanic black female -2.4
Hispanic female -2.0
non-Hispanic white male -1.3
non-Hispanic white female -1.1
Political consequences are possible and even likely. This may have made elections in Arizona (Hispanics), Georgia (blacks), Michigan (blacks), Nevada (Hispanics), Pennsylvania (blacks), and Wisconsin (blacks) closer than one might have expected in January 2020. COVID-19 might have made a difference in Florida and North Carolina, which many liberals thought might go D. Texas, which has large numbers of blacks and Hispanics, might have been much closer without COVID-19. Most deaths were of people of voting age, so political effects would be felt in 2020.
I'm not accusing anyone of political manipulation. COVID-19 certainly disenfranchised black and Hispanic voters discriminatorily, whether the effect was design or accident. Draw whatever conclusions you wish.
5. People may have been dying of COVID-19 instead of something else, like cancer, strokes, HIV, cirrhosis, diabetes, or dementia. For people in weakened conditions, COVID-19 might have been the official killer on a death certificate -- but COVID-19 dwarfs those causes combined.
6, The most obvious limitation on this study is time. We do not know what effects will arise in the future, but they cannot be good. Maybe the distribution of vulnerable people will change from 2020 to 2021. COVID-19 survivors often endure complications that themselves shorten life. Compromised organs and brains will cause trouble for decades among relatively-young survivors. Diabetes is a multi-organ plight. If COVID-19 does not kill outright it can still shorten life.
.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.