Some experts also suggest that life expectancy doesn't capture the long-term toll of COVID-19. In 2017, the opioid crisis reduced life expectancy at birth by 0.07 years, according to Statistics Canada. The agency used 2019's life expectancy of 82.1 years as a baseline for their calculations, because the actual life expectancy for 2020 won't be known until the number of non-COVID deaths for that year is available. Manitoba's life expectancy was the second worst-affected with a drop of 0.6 years, followed by Ontario and Alberta. "The overall life expectancy can continue to stay lower for several years, because it's being driven by widening inequities across groups."

Source: CBC News June 11, 2021 07:52 UTC