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Heat wave and mortality: this very striking correlation between temperature and number of deaths

2022-10-01T10:25:29.782Z


The curves of the average temperature and the number of daily deaths in France follow each other quite markedly throughout this summer 2


What impact will the second hottest summer on record have had in terms of human lives?

INSEE unveiled, this Friday, the number of deaths from all causes recorded each day in France until September 19, thus encompassing the entire summer season From June 1 to August 31, more than 155,000 people lost their lives in France.

This is 8,486 more than last year (+ 5.8%) and 13,446% more than in 2019 (+ 9.5%), the most recent year before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The increase and aging of the population may partly explain these differences, but they are not the only factors.

The three successive heat waves (late June, mid-July, and early August) “probably” also had an impact, INSEE said a month ago.

Moreover, the comparative analysis of the average temperature in France and the number of deaths recorded a day later shows two curves which follow each other quite strikingly.

Clearly, the hotter it was, the higher the number of deaths recorded the next day tended to be.

The peak of average temperature in France, 28.1 ° C on July 18, also corresponds to the peak of mortality (2,108 deaths recorded on July 19).

This Monday, July 18, new maximum temperature records were reached in 64 municipalities: 39.3 ° C in Brest, 42.6 ° C in Biscarrosse, 38.2 ° C in Limoges, etc.

8th wave of Covid-19

We have chosen to shift the two curves by 24 hours because death does not necessarily occur on very hot days.

"For exceptional temperatures such as we are experiencing them, the risk of death increases sharply, mainly in the three days following the peak", indicated at the end of July to Le Monde the epidemiologist Mathilde Pascal, project manager "climate change and health” to Public Health France.

However, caution should be exercised in interpreting these data.

Other factors, starting with the 8th wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, may also have had an impact on mortality.

The peak of daily deaths of patients with SARS-CoV-2 was also reached at the end of July.

But it reached “only” 100, barely 10% of the total number of people losing their lives every day during this period.

Furthermore, there is no correlation between Covid mortality and total mortality during the rest of the summer.

Read also Heat wave: how is the number of deaths linked to high heat calculated?

We should know more in the complete assessment “taking into account all the heat waves this summer but also the concomitant Covid-19 epidemic”, which Public Health France plans to publish in October.

For the fifteen days of heat wave in the summer of 2003, Inserm had estimated that the number of "excess" deaths and therefore attributable to high heat was close to 15,000.

Source: leparis

All life articles on 2022-10-01

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