Research has highlighted how weather extremes worsened by climate change are now a major national public health threat. The study, led by the University of Bristol and published today in Nature Communications , showed how the death toll from temperature hazards overtook the number of deaths from COVID-19 in the South West region of England, when the UK was in the throes of the pandemic. Lead author Dr.
Eunice Lo, Research Fellow in Climate Change and Health at the University's Cabot Institute for the Environment and Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research, said, "The statistics are stark and illustrate how high the health burden of adverse weather is in the UK in the current climate. I anticipated higher levels of mortality than normal as the country was also experiencing a record heat wave during the peak of the pandemic, but the extent of the increases is surprising and concerning." The researchers sprang into action after Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government's former Chief Scientific Adviser, highlighted at COP26 that the climate crisis was a far bigger problem than COVID-19, which would prove more fatal without immediate changes.
Their findings clearly evidence such claims with analysis revealing temperature-related mortality exceeded COVID-19 mortality by 8% in South West England between 2020 and 2022. Temperature-related deaths were also just a quarter less than deaths from COVID-19 in London and not far from a third less (58%) in East Midlands over the sam.
