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. 2023 Aug 20:887:164104.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164104. Epub 2023 May 12.

High temperature, COVID-19, and mortality excess in the 2022 summer: a cohort study on data from Italian surveillances

Francesco Venturelli  1 , Pamela Mancuso  1 , Massimo Vicentini  2 , Marta Ottone  1 , Cinzia Storchi  1 , Francesca Roncaglia  1 , Eufemia Bisaccia  3 , Chiara Ferrarini  1 , Patrizio Pezzotti  4 , Paolo Giorgi Rossi  1 ; Reggio Emilia COVID19 Working group
Affiliations

High temperature, COVID-19, and mortality excess in the 2022 summer: a cohort study on data from Italian surveillances

Francesco Venturelli et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

We aimed to assess whether the effect of high temperature on mortality differed in COVID-19 survivors and naive. We used data from the summer mortality and COVID-19 surveillances. We found 3.8 % excess risk in 2022 summer, compared to 2015-2019, while 20 % in the last fortnight of July, the period with the highest temperature. The increase in mortality rates during the second fortnight of July was higher among naïve compared to COVID-19 survivors. The time series analysis confirmed the association between temperatures and mortality in naïve people, showing an 8 % excess (95%CI 2 to 13) for a one-degree increase of Thom Discomfort Index while in COVID-19 survivors the effect was almost null with -1 % (95%CI -9 to 9). Our results suggest that the high fatality rate of COVID-19 in fragile people has decreased the proportion of susceptible people who can be affected by the extremely high temperature.

Keywords: COVID-19; High temperature; Mortality; Sars-CoV-2; Surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Paolo Giorgi Rossi reports financial support was provided by Ministry of Health.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Daily mortality rate in COVID-19 survivors and COVID-19 naïve (assessed on May 31, 2022), Thom Discomfort Index and maximum Temperature in Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2022summer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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