THURSDAY, Dec. 22, 2022 (HealthDay News) — The average American’s expected life span at birth took another big hit in 2021, according to final data on death rates for that pandemic year. Whereas in 2019 the average American could have expected to live an average of 78.8 years, life expectancy declined to 77 years in 2020, and then to 76.4 years in 2021, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s the shortest estimated U.S. life expectancy since 1996, the agency noted. Of course, the toll taken by COVID-19 — which has so far killed over 1.1 million Americans — is largely to…