German life expectancy decreased during pandemic years

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s national statistics office says that the country’s average life expectancy dropped noticeably between 2019 and 2021. It attributed the change to unusually high numbers of deaths during the coronavirus pandemic. The Federal Statistical Office said Tuesday that life expectancy for newborn girls last year was 83.2 years and for boys 78.2 years. That was a decrease of 0.4 and 0.6 years respectively compared with 2019, the last year before the pandemic. The statistics office said that nearly 115,000 deaths of people with the coronavirus were reported in the two years, while pandemic-related precautions may have reduced deaths from other diseases. Germany has a population of 83 million.