美国疾病控制和预防中心数据显示，2021年全美死亡人数创新高，达到346.5万人，比2020年死亡人数多约8万。据美联社13日报道，美国疾控中心相关数据统计负责官员罗伯特·安德森称，新冠病毒肆虐是美国2021年死亡人数创新高的主要原因。随着美国人口的增长，美国死亡总人数往往逐年增加。但2020和2021美国的死亡人数和死亡率出现了激增，主要新冠疫情导致的。

 

2021 was the deadliest year in US history, and new data and research are offering more insights into how it got that bad.

2021是美国历史上最致命的一年，新的数据和研究让我们进一步了解究竟发生了什么。

 

The main reason for the increase in deaths? COVID-19, said Robert Anderson, who oversees¹ the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work on death statistics.

美国去年死亡人数增加的主要原因是什么？美疾控中心相关数据统计负责官员罗伯特·安德森认为，是新冠。

 

The agency this month quietly updated its provisional death tally². It showed there were 3.465 million deaths last year, or about 80,000 more than 2020′s record-setting total.

该机构本月更新了临时死亡人数数据。报告显示，全美去年共有346.5万人死亡，比2020年创下的纪录增加了约8万人。

 

Early last year, some experts were optimistic that 2021 would not be as bad as the first year of the pandemic — partly because effective COVID-19 vaccines³ had finally become available.

去年初，一些专家乐观地认为2021年不会像疫情第一年那么糟糕，一部分原因是已经研发出有效的疫苗。

 

"We were wrong, unfortunately," said Noreen Goldman, a Princeton University researcher.

普林斯顿大学研究员诺琳·戈德曼称：“不幸的是，我们错了。”

 

COVID-19 deaths rose in 2021 — to more than 415,000, up from 351,000 the year before — as new coronavirus variants⁴ emerged and an unexpectedly large numbers of Americans refused to get vaccinated⁵ or were hesitant to wear masks, experts said.

专家表示，新冠死亡人数从351000人上升到415000，病毒出现了新的变异毒株，而大批美国人拒绝接种疫苗、不愿佩戴口罩。

 

The coronavirus is not solely⁶ to blame. Preliminary CDC data also shows the crude death rate for cancer rose slightly, and rates continued to increase for diabetes⁷, chronic⁸ liver disease and stroke.

新冠病毒不是唯一的罪魁祸首。美疾控中心的初步数据还显示，癌症的粗死亡率略有上升，糖尿病、慢性肝病和中风的粗死亡率持续上升。

 

Drug overdose deaths also continued to rise. New research released Tuesday showed a particularly large jump in overdose deaths among 14- to 18-year-olds.

吸毒过量死亡人数也在持续上升。4月12日公布的一项新研究显示，美国14至18岁人群中的吸毒过量死亡人数大幅增加。

 

Adolescent overdose death counts were fairly constant for most of the last decade, at around 500 a year, according to the paper published by the Journal of the American Medical Association. They almost doubled in 2020, to 954, and the researchers estimated that the total hit nearly 1,150 last year.

根据《美国医学会杂志》发表的论文，在过去十年的大部分时间里，美国青少年吸毒过量死亡人数一直稳定在每年约500人。到2020年，这一数字几乎翻了一番，达到954人。研究人员估计，2021年青少年吸毒过量死亡人数接近1150人。

 

The total number of US deaths often increases year to year as the US population grows. But 2020 and 2021 saw extraordinary jumps in death numbers and rates, due largely to the pandemic.

随着美国人口的增长，美国死亡总人数往往逐年增加。但2020和2021在死亡人数和死亡率上出现了激增，主要原因是新冠疫情。

 

Those national death trends affect life expectancy⁹ — an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live.

美国的死亡人数趋势影响了美国人的预期寿命（对特定年份出生的婴儿的平均预期寿命的预测）。

 

With rare exceptions, US life expectancy has reliably inched up year after year. But the CDC’s life expectancy estimate for 2020 was about 77 years — more than a year and a half lower than what it was in 2019.

除了极个别情况外，美国的预期寿命确实在逐年缓慢增长。但美疾控中心对2020年的预期寿命估计约为77岁，比2019年低了一岁半。

 

The CDC has not yet reported its calculation for 2021. But Goldman and some other researchers have been making their own estimates, presented in papers that have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals.

美疾控中心还没有公布2021的预期寿命。但戈德曼和其他研究人员一直在做估算，在尚未在同行评议的杂志上发表的论文中提出。

 

Those researchers think US life expectancy dropped another five or six months in 2021 — putting it back to where it was 20 years ago.

研究人员认为美国的预期寿命在2021年下降了五或六个月，回到了20年前的水平。

 

A loss of more than two years of life expectancy over the last two years "is mammoth," Goldman said.

戈德曼表示，过去两年，美国预期寿命缩短超过两年，这一数字“极其巨大”。

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