So in summary / The heat wave was truly exceptional in Germany / It was concentrated on the western part of Germany / It lead to a spike in mortality with - daily deaths higher than at any moment in the pandemic - 12,000 more deaths than would be expected at the end of June 2026 END

As exceptional as the wave is, in an annual view, the level of excess is still within the range of the "bigger years" of the recent past because bigger years tend to see multiple events So the annual level could still be not as extreme as the heat event itself (please note I wrote: "still"😀) 8/

So it is not surprising that the % excess was significantly higher in the western Federal States than in the eastern ones NB: weekly death data by State for the week ending 5/7 is not yet available 6/

However, the heat wave was not uniformly intense across the country In fact, it was particularly exceptional in the western part of the country (e.g. Frankfurt am Main) and less so (all is relative of course...) in its eastern part (e.g. Leipzig) 5/

What added to the deadliness of the wave was that minimal nighttime temperatures were even more off the scale than the daytime maximal ones There was no cooling down period 4/

It is hardly surprising that the excess is beyond anything seen in recent times The heat wave was quite exceptional with daily max temperature records being broken in many places NB: comparison here is with data since 1949 3/

The intensity of the excess is completely off the chart and multiple orders of magnitude higher than those from any other heat wave in Germany since 2000 NB: the high 2022 figures also include excess from covid as Germany saw its main infection waves during that year 2/

Destatis released almost final death data up to 5/7 for Germany (there will be some minor correction upwards from reporting delays for the last days) The heat wave generated ~12,000 excess deaths vs. the ~2,500 daily expected before the heat wave I added some perspective on this below 1/

b) England saw already a heat event with comparatively high heat mortality at the end of May So it could be that this may have "taken away" the early mortality which we would have otherwise seen in the end of June wave As said: these are two "thoughts", not "assertions"😀 END

And finally, an update on France where @santepubliquefrance.fr updated its data / My estimate of last week is confirmed (ie 5,000) / To this one needs to add another 1,500 in the week ending 5/7 / So the heat wave at the end of June will have lead to approx 6,500 heat deaths in France

@rivm-nl.bsky.social updated its death mortality today for the Netherlands Plotting their figures into my charts indicates that the heat episode led to 1,000 heat deaths This would be markedly less (pro-rata) than in Belgium, France or Germany

@sciensano.be released an analysis of the heat mortality in Belgium at the end of June It upped its initial estimate of heat deaths to 1,750 (similar to the toll Belgium saw in the Aug 2020 heat wave) I scrapped the death data into my tool: How deaths suddenly spike is simply phenomenal

Here my chart for Düsseldorf - As elsewhere in continental western Europe, the continuous very high nighttime temperatures was creating suffocating conditions

ADDENDUM: I think this chart with daily deaths during summer from 2000 to 2026 actually shows best how exceptional the heat mortality has been at the end of June 2026 in Germany (thx to @benfire71 over on twitter for asking the question of summer deaths and triggering the idea for the chart)

What is so striking is how the deaths "exploded" as soon as the extreme heat built up What is also clear is that the excess will not stop on Jun 28 Using the magical art of "eyeballing," it looks as if the heat excess mortality will eventually reach 10,000 2/

The German Stats Offfice (Destatis) just released death data up to 28/6 for Germany These are preliminary (and will still increase a bit) but already now a) Germany saw over 7,500 excess deaths in the weeks ending on 21/6 & 28/6 b) Jun 28 saw more deaths than any day the pandemic in Germany 1/

But no, the authors go for number bingo (ie calculations devoid of any business / health underpinning) and weigh deaths by UCOD That the result is pointless should have been clear to the authors as their restated deaths (eg respiratory) STILL correlate with covid in 2021 ! 3/

The topic is critical in excess mortality analysis: An analysis by underlying cause is bound to fail because the underlying cause is often not what will trigger the moment of death But I have read this paper twice: I don't see anything except assumptions and speculations 1/

And, as expected (unfortunately), excess is highest for deaths at home END

The mortality report provides splits by age and place of death (NB: these are figures based on electronically reported deaths only!) We see a clear excess also in the 45-64yo

@santepubliquefrance.fr released its mortality surv update up to 28/6 based on electronic death certificates I developed a while ago a toy tool to deduce all weekly deaths that is "good enough to 3-5%" Ballpark death toll linked to the heat episode end of June will be 5,000 in France

When you look at maximal daytime temperatures, the difference is not as clear (except that there was already a big heat event last month) So, it's much hotter but not necessarily with higher temperature peaks 2/2

Also England saw a big heat wave and there are debates about whether "it's bigger than 1976" The big difference are the minimal daily temperatures, which have been way higher than anything seen in 1976 1/2

Quick add on on the current heat wave in western Europe: I have seen comments about 1911, which saw an unprecedentedly long heat wave (weeks on end) The big difference with 2026 is the intensity, best illustrated on night maximal temperatures 1/

Also in England, the heat episode of end of May led to a spike of deaths It's still early days (there is a wobble around deaths occurrences due to uncertainty around completion rate) But eye-balling yields 800-1,200 excess deaths vs. expected from surrounding weeks

But, even with these provisos, the current night heat levels in France are truly exceptional by any reasonable measure, because it is so way out of any norm FWIW, maximal daytime temperatures are also exceptional but not "as exceptional" as the night ones (again with the same provisos re stats) 4/

How exceptional is the current heat wave in France? I downloaded the daily data from Paris Montsouris from 1900 onwards The night heat last night was at "4z" ie 4 standard deviations from average Such an event is "expected" (comments below) to happen once every 1,500 yrs 1/

There are talks about a heat dome developing above France A similar event happened at the end of May: It looks as if it led to an excess of 1,000-1,500 deaths (NB: my estimate based on preliminary mortality data shared by @santepubliquefrance.fr in its weekly Mortality Surveillance)

A study showed a reduction of cervical cancer mortality in young women in England and links this to the vax programme introduced in 2008 (reaching 80-90% of 12-13 yo since) with a catch up for 14-18 yo up to 2010 I had a simple look at (smoothed) trends: Looks pretty convincing

As there are discussions again on "are heat deaths a thing?", here the south of Italy (per Istat definition) Please note that the deaths here EXCLUDE covid deaths (to avoid confounders)