The recent pandemic had minimal impact on US life expectancy. Opioid poisoning and motor vehicle crashes have been a larger factor since before 2019 because they typically kill much younger people. This magnifies the impact on life expectancy.
That may have been the case in 2017, the date of your article, certainly then opiod deaths outweighed the nonexistant deaths from COVID.
Today, in 2024, looking back, there's a sharp decline in US life expectancy figures after 2019 that, according to the CDC and other epidemiologists, had little to do with opiods:
In 1980, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. and in comparably large and wealthy countries was similar, but over recent decades, life expectancy has improved by much more in peer nations than it has in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased mortality and premature death rates in the U.S. by more than it did in most peer countries, widening a gap that already existed before the pandemic.
Life expectancy in the U.S. fell by 2.4 years from 2019 to 2021, whereas in peer countries’ life expectancies fell by an average of just 0.3 years in this period. COVID-19 has erased two decades of life expectancy growth in the U.S., whereas the average life expectancy for comparable countries has decreased only marginally, to 2018 levels.
- from [1], and
In 2021, 9 of the 10 leading causes of death remained the same as in 2020. The top leading cause in 2021 was heart disease, followed by cancer and COVID-19 (Figure 4).
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis became the 9th leading cause of death in 2021, while influenza and pneumonia dropped from the list of 10 leading causes. The remaining leading causes in 2021 (unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, and kidney disease) remained at the same ranks as in 2020.
- from [2]. Note than in [2] opiod deaths do not feature in the the ten leading causes of death in the USofA.
What does stand out is that OECD | G20 countries in general have steadily improved quality of life and expectancy whereas the USofA has been relative flat since 2012 (opiods and other reasons) and sharply dropped post COVID (poor community health responses).
The UK doesn't have an opioid crisis like the US, and road deaths have been falling for decades. The drop in UK life expectancy is almost entirely due to the pandemic. That doesn't just mean deaths from COVID though: in the UK an increased pressure on health services has lead to delays in all sorts of treatment, which have caused spikes in deaths from other causes too.
Put that down to a complete dogs breakfast response to handling an epidemic.