It was the year COVID-19 vaccines became widely available, and the pandemic’s startling death toll in California and elsewhere appeared close to being reined in.

Instead, life expectancy in California fell by more than 8 months in 2021, dropping the Golden State to 10th place in the nation, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An analysis of all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that babies born in California in 2021 could expect to live 78.3 years — down from 79 years in 2020, when California ranked fourth in the nation.

The decrease, which was reported Wednesday by the CDC’s National Vital Satistics System, revealed that the promise of COVID-19 vaccines — along with other public health measures — was not enjoyed uniformly across the nation.

While life expectancy dropped in California and 38 other states, it increased in 11 others and held steady in the District of Columbia. (New Jersey logged a gain of 1.5 years between 2020 and 2021, the best performance among the states.)

In 2019, before the coronavirus reached U.S. shores, the state’s overall life expectancy at birth was 80.9 years, with an expected life span of 78.4 years for men and 83.3 years for women. That put California in the No. 2 spot, just slightly behind Hawaii. (The states were so close that Hawaii’s overall life expectancy that year was also reported as 80.9 years.)

Then deaths during the first year of the pandemic shaved 1.9 years off California’s life expectancy at birth. Only 15 states weathered larger declines. (New York saw the biggest drop, losing 3 full years of life expectancy between 2019 and 2020.)

Expected life spans in the Golden State shrank by another 0.7 years in 2021, according to the new report. That was the 27th-largest decline, putting it in the middle of the pack. (The biggest drop was in Alaska, where it plunged from 76.6 to 74.5 years.)

The life expectancy of Americans as whole fell by 0.6 years to 76.4 years, according to the new report. CDC researchers attributed that decrease primarily to high numbers of COVID-19 deaths and fatalities from accidental drug overdoses.

Hawaii retained the longevity crown in 2021, with a life expectancy of 79.9 years.

That was a full 9 years longer than in Mississippi, which ranked 51st among all states and the District of Columbia. A baby born in the Magnolia state could expect to live 70.9 years, according to the new report.

The states that rounded out the top five overall in 2021 were Massachusetts (79.6 years), Connecticut (79.2 years), New York (79.0) and New Jersey (also 79.0).

Joining Mississippi at the bottom of the list were West Virginia (71.0 years), Alabama (72.0 years), Louisiana (72.2 years) and Kentucky (72.3 years).

More broadly, “states with the lowest life expectancy at birth were mostly Southern states,” the report said. “States with the highest life expectancy at birth were predominantly Western … and Northeastern states.”

Women were expected to outlive men in every state in 2021. The life expectancy gap ranged from a high of 7.6 years in New Mexico to a low of 3.9 years in Utah. The average gender gap for the country as a whole was 5.8 years, according to the report.

In California, the expected lifespan was 81.4 years for a baby girl born in 2021 and 75.3 years for a baby boy — a difference of 6.1 years.

For the most part, the states with the largest differential between the sexes had lower life expectancies overall. Meanwhile, states with the smallest discrepancies between males and females tended to have higher overall life expectancies, the CDC noted.

This chart ranks states according to the size of their gender gap for life expectancy at birth in 2021. New Mexico had the biggest discrepancy, while Utah had the smallest.

(National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System)

CDC researchers also calculated the remaining lifespan for Americans who were 65 years old in 2021. The nationwide average was 18.4 years — 17.0 years for men and 19.7 years for women.

Life expectancy at 65 is always greater than life expectancy at birth because the pool of people who survive to their 65th birthday excludes those who weren’t able to reach that milestone.

The risk of death in the first year of life is particularly high — the U.S. infant mortality rate in 2021 was 5.44 deaths per 1,000 live births — and actuarial life tables from the Social Security Administration show that it takes until age 49 for the mortality rate to reach the same level.

In 2021, 65-year-olds in Hawaii had the most years to look forward to, with an average remaining life expectancy of 20.6 years. That was followed by Connecticut at 19.9 years, Massachusetts at 19.6 years, and Minnesota, New York, Vermont and New Jersey at 19.4 years.

Mississippi ranked 51st on this longevity list as well, offering 65-year-olds an expectation of 16.1 more years to live. West Virginia also had a remaining life expectancy of 16.1 years, followed by Alabama, Oklahoma and Kentucky at 16.4 years.

California beat the nationwide averages for 65-year-olds with a remaining overall life expectancy of 19.3 years. That included 17.8 additional years for 65-year-old men and 20.7 years for 65-year-old women.

The Democratic National Convention hosted a “celebratory” roll call Tuesday night, but two states initially passed on casting their votes.

During the roll call process, each state and U.S. territory announces the votes its delegates will give to each candidate. In this case, the delegates votes were cast virtually ahead of the convention to avoid ballot challenges, but the organizers kept the convention tradition, allowing representatives from each state to say a few words in casting their votes in a party atmosphere.

California and Minnesota, the home states of Democratic nominees Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, initially passed before going again at the end to close out the roll call vote.

Harris was then streamed in to say a few words from a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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What is the roll call vote?

During roll call, each state and U.S. territory announces the votes its delegates will give to each candidate. The Democratic National Committee opened a virtual roll call on Aug. 1, and by the following day she received the 2,350 majority of votes needed to secure the nomination.

The delegates are people who are chosen during primaries and caucuses to represent the party at the conventions. Candidates usually win delegates based on the party primary elections, but the this year delegates shifted their votes from President Joe Biden, who earned delegates in the primaries, to Harris after Biden dropped out.

The states typically go in alphabetical order, and the chair of the sate delegation gives a short speech while announcing their votes.

Watch the 2024 Democratic National Convention

The convention is taking place Monday through Thursday this week at the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks, will be the main venue for the DNC. Chicago has hosted the Democratic Convention 11 times, most recently in 1996 when the United Center saw President Bill Clinton was nominated for a second time.

The convention will air live on its website, from the United Center in Chicago between 6:15 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern (5:15 p.m. to 10 p.m Central) on Monday, and 7 p.m to 11 p.m. Eastern (6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Central) the other days.

USA TODAY will provide livestream coverage on YouTube each night of the DNC, Monday through Thursday.

Contributing: Rebecca Morin, Joey Garrison, Maya Marchel Hoff, James Powel

A Tesla Semi truck crashed into trees and caught fire off the side of a highway in California early Monday, causing road closures on I-80 for almost 16 hours. As reported by KCRA 3 News, Cal Fire crews first headed to the crash site near the Nevada border after 3AM local time.

Firefighters doused the Tesla Semi with thousands of gallons of water to cool its lithium-ion EV battery pack down to a manageable target temperature of around 100 degrees Fahrenheit while waiting for its cells to burn out. Around 4PM the crew got the batteries to a safer temperature and began work to move what was left of the Semi to Tesla’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. The highway was fully reopened after 7PM.

California Highway Patrol told KCRA 3 that the driver of the Semi was taken to a hospital after walking away from the crash. Now, authorities are investigating the cause of the crash, including whether the driver had fallen asleep. The Semi was operated by Tesla, which often uses the class 8 commercial truck to haul freshly made EV batteries from the Gigafactory to its Fremont, California car manufacturing plant. In this case, it was not pulling a trailer, so it seems the Semi’s own batteries were burning.

It’s not the first time big Tesla batteries have caught fire in California. The company’s Megawatt energy storage batteries went aflame at a local utility in 2022, shutting down part of a highway.