The average age of mortality in the US today is 77.1 years, representing a drop of 2+ years. from the 79.4 in 2019. Until 2020, that rate had been rising at a rate of about 2 weeks a year since the late 1990s, a result of better health technology and overall nutrition. Thus, the drop of a year per year represents a DRAMATIC decline.
However, keep in mind as well, that this is an AVERAGE. Covid hit older populations very hard, meaning that the standard deviation (which had been about 9 years on either side of that average), has dropped to about 6.5 years. This in turn implies that the number of people that are living to 90 has plummeted in the US.
Additionally, if you factor out predominantly urban (blue) states, these numbers become even starker, with the average age for men now at about 73. Of course, it also includes non-white populations which are also fairly heavily hit, primarily due to lack of access to vaccinations, but, even by race, red vs. blue is seeing stark differences in terms of the number of people dying (perhaps as much as 8 to 1, though I've not seen strong evidence for that high a discrepancy). This means that if you are in a red state you have likely lost as much as five years due to the virus.
Also note that health care workers all across the board have been heavily hit, which in turn is degrading the care that people are receiving in hospital, as the thread mentioned below indicates, and increasing the likelihood that if you go into the hospital for Covid, your chance of dying rises pretty dramatically. Finally, we don't have any idea what Long Covid looks like. It is a disease that does severe damage to the interbrachial passageways, blood vessels, the heart, and the brain, damage that often occurs without much in the way of symptoms. My anticipation is that you are going to see a significantly increased mortality due to heart attacks and heart failure, strokes, pulmonary impairment, and perhaps increased myeloma.
Politically (and yes, this is callous to say it, but I'm going to), I think this means that by 2024, there will be far fewer (maybe 20% fewer) anti-vaxxers (who are mostly very conservative or libertarian) surviving than there will be those who are vaccinated. In a presidential election year, that will amount to about an 8% or so deficit in the polls for the GQP. There's a structural advantage of roughly 3% for the Republicans based upon both gerrymandering and electoral college in the US today, though ironically it looks like that may be down to about a 2.2% by 2024 if map challenges prove successful. Even taking into account the hit on minorities that will impact Democrats more than Republicans, Covid-19 is likely to keep the GOP out of power for potentially decades, given other demographic factors.
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