Print this article If we needed more evidence that national wealth, scientific knowledge, technical know-how and sophisticated healthcare don’t guarantee healthier lives, then the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has provided it. Covid-19 is cutting life expectancy in many wealthy Western countries, cancelling decades of gains already under threat from growing inequality. The United States is the stand-out failure. For decades, enormous spending on healthcare has failed to produce better health and longer lives than in many other countries that spend less. Covid-19 has added hugely to the mortality toll, with a disproportionate number of deaths among already-lagging minority populations. But even before the pandemic, average life expectancy in the United States, and in Britain, had fallen in recent years.