Dying of heat
The former government chief scientific adviser Sir David King predicted that the heatwave in mid-July could cause up to 10,000 excess deaths. Was he right?
— The ONS says there were 2,227 excess deaths from 10 to 25 July: that is compared with the five-year average (which excludes the Covid year of 2020). This amounted to a 10.4% rise in excess deaths. The ONS recorded 3,271 excess deaths during the five ‘heat periods’ of the summer months (when the mean Central England Temperature exceeds 20˚C). There were nearly twice as many excess deaths among females (2,159) as among men (1,115), a reversal of previous heatwaves. There were 5,017 excess deaths among the over-seventies. Deaths among the under-seventies were 1,749 lower than the five-year average. Some caveats to these figures: excess deaths are a simple comparison with the five-year average and are not adjusted for a growing and ageing population.
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