On Wednesday, the Eagle published the summer Health and Fitness section with stories about how some readers dealt — or didn’t — with the pandemic.

Counselors were busy. People were isolated, alone, some in pain over their own health issues, physical or mental, and the loss of friends and family to COVID-19.

For some, it was tough to reach out. It was a trial to feel connected.

“When working with people suffering from grief, loss and trauma, one thing you want them to do is build a community,” said Bette Peoples, executive director of the Butler-based Grapevine Center, a mental health recovery drop-in facility for those who need guidance. “And COVID made that impossible.”

What’s worse, life expectancy across America fell.

In an Associated Press story on Wednesday, the organization reported that U.S. life expectancy fell by a year and a half in 2020, the largest one-year decline since World War II. The decrease for both Black Americans and Hispanic Americans was even worse: three years.

Health officials say the COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for close to 74% of the overall life expectancy decline. More than 3.3 million Americans died last year, far more than any other year in U.S. history, with COVID-19 accounting for about 11% of those deaths.

Life expectancy for Blacks has not fallen so much in one year since the mid-1930s, during the Great Depression. Health officials have not tracked Hispanic life expectancy for nearly as long, but the 2020 decline was the largest recorded one-year drop.

The abrupt fall is “basically catastrophic,” said Mark Hayward, a University of Texas sociology professor who studies changes in U.S. Mortality.

“It’s hard to imagine a more alarming sign of a society’s well-being than an inability to keep its citizens alive,” wrote columnist David Leonhardt of the New York Times. “American society has become far more unequal than it used to be, and the recent increases in mortality are concentrated among working-class Americans, especially those without a four-year college degree.

“For many, daily life lacks the structure, status and meaning that it once had, as the Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have explained. Many people feel less of a connection to an employer, a labor union, a church or community groups. They are less likely to be married. They are more likely to endure chronic pain and to report being unhappy.”

Many pandemic-related deaths had to do with underlying health issues such as diabetes, lung and heart issues. Some are preventable. Some are not.

What the pandemic spelled out in all caps was: if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re putting yourself more at risk when something like COVID-19 comes along.

The health section focused on self-care, including preventing osteoporosis by incorporating an all-important exercise program into your life. Type 1 diabetes sufferers need to seriously consider using the self-care of exercise to build their health, and their immunity, as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc, especially on the unvaccinated.

There are those that can help with good advice.

If you need to reach out, no matter your suffering, contact the Grapevine Center or another service in your community that can help.

— AA