an excess mortality during the summer of 2022?

A scorching summer of 2022, in the midst of the seventh wave of Covid-19. In this context, the mortality figures published by INSEE call out. Mortality on the rise, with a peak in mid-July of 2,098 deaths, i.e. a 13% increase for this summer month compared to 2019. Excess mortality amounts to 11,000 people for the summer period. For the emergency doctor Patrick Pelloux, the heat wave is indeed responsible. As in 2003, the drama is repeated. “There is still no awareness of the public authorities of the consequences of the heat wave”he believes.

Other doctors prefer to qualify, recalling that the Covid-19 caused 40 to 100 daily deaths this summer. “It is very difficult to disentangle the deaths which were due this summer to the heat wave and the heat waves from the deaths which are due to the Covid, because unfortunately the seventh wave of Covid occurred at the same time this year”explains doctor Damien Mascret. Excess summer mortality has been a sensitive subject since the 2003 heat wave, when 15,200 people died.