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Life expectancy in US plunges due to pandemic
A senior spokesperson for House speaker Nancy Pelosi and a White House official have tested positive for Covid-19. Both had been fully vaccinated.
Life expectancy in the US fell by a year and a half in 2020 to 77.3 years, the lowest level since 2003, primarily due to deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, a US health agency said on Wednesday. It is the biggest one-year decline since World War II, when life expectancy fell 2.9 years between 1942 and 1943, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report, said, “It’s sort of like we lost a decade.”
New York City will require public hospital workers to get vaccinated or take a weekly test, mayor Bill de Blasio said. The order goes into effect on August 2 and will apply to the some 30,000 employees.
A senior spokesperson for House speaker Nancy Pelosi and a White House official have tested positive for Covid-19. Both had been fully vaccinated.
France launches vaccine pass as fourth wave hits
French cinemas, museums and sports venues began asking visitors to show proof of vaccination or a negative test as the country, which is seeing a fourth wave, rolled out a vaccine passport system, known as “health pass”.
Meanwhile, the WHO said there were more than 3.4 million new global cases of the coronavirus last week, a 12% increase from the previous week. Separately, the WHO said the Delta variant has been detected in at least 124 countries.
