According to new data, the life expectancy in the United States dropped a full year during the beginning half of 2020 due to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decrease was most significant among people of color, according to preliminary estimates from the CDC. The life expectancy for black Americans dropped almost three years, while the life expectancy for Hispanic Americans dropped almost two years. The life expectancy for white Americans fell just 0.8 years.

Robert Anderson, who oversaw the data from the CDC, said “This is a huge decline. You have to go back to World War II, the 1940s, to find a decline like this.”

Health experts attribute the stark decrease in life expectancy not only to coronavirus, but also to infection, cancer, and heart disease.

“What is really quite striking in these numbers is that they only reflect the first half of the year,” said Dr. Kristin Bibbins-Domingo, a health equity researcher and dean at the University of California, San Francisco. “I expect that these numbers would only get worse.”

Since the report only shows data from the first half of 2020, the hundreds of thousands of deaths recorded in the summer and fall were not included. COVID-19 has also made 2020 the deadliest year in American history, with over 3 million deaths recorded across the country.

In 2019, the life expectancy was 78.8 years. It has fallen to 77.8 years, the report said. The expectancy was 75.1 years for males and 80.5 years for females.