40º heat proved fatal for health compromised seniors
In what are becoming increasingly sensationalist headlines over summer temperatures, Correio da Manhã today announces that the excessive heat experienced in Portugal from June 30 to July 3 “killed 227 people”.
To be fair, this is an oversimplification: what the paper means is that there were 227 ‘excess deaths’ registered over the four day period – namely in already health-compromised seniors.
These were not perfectly healthy adults walking around happily one day, and ‘killed by the heat’ the next.
In fact, heatwaves traditionally are associated with ‘excess deaths’. CM concedes this further down in its story, outlining the numbers of people who died over the four day period (1,330, of which 1,201 were seniors). “The numbers do not surprise Rui Nogueira, president of the Portuguese society of health literacy. “I don’t think this is exaggerated, it’s expected: we have a very elderly population, and we have not had time to prepare for intense heat”, he told the paper.
As Nogueira went on, during the first few days of extreme heat, “there were coolish nights with temperatures below 20ºC, but then the nights started heating up, which created an accumulative effect in homes: the heat ended up failing to dissipate, homes did not cool during the night…”
The medical specialist defends “improved architecture, to prepare homes for extreme heat. There has to be better shading, windows that are not quite so open, they should be narrower and placed higher up, to improve insulation”, he said.
Equally, people should avoid outdoor activities in times of extreme heat: “The siesta should be an institution”, he stressed – and elderly people should be educated to drink water “even when they are not thirsty”.
All in all, it is a repeat of so many warnings and pieces of advice given whenever the country goes through a summer heatwave.
Last June was one of the hottest on record – and July is certain to bring further days of ‘excessive heat’, as the two months are two of the hottest during the summer season. August, traditionally the holiday month when resorts are at their fullest, generally has more wind associated with it, and locally is known as the month in which all four seasons can make appearances.
UPDATE: Since CM’s front page story today, DGS, the country’s general health directorate, has revised the death count upwards, recording 284 excess deaths for the heatwave (which it calculated as starting two days earlier), “mostly among people “aged 85 and over”. In other words, people who had already exceeded average life expectancy.
Source material: Correio da Manhã/ Lusa
