A new BC Coroners Service report examining last year’s heat dome calls for greater support for populations at risk during extreme heat emergencies.
The report also highlighted a delay between the issuance of heat alerts by Environment Canada and the public response.
Temperatures exceeded 40 ° C for days during the heatwave, when most of the people who died included elderly and vulnerable people living in air-conditioned buildings.
Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe and Dr. Jatinder Baidwan, medical director of the BC Coroners Service, are expected to speak on the report at a news conference Tuesday at 10:00 p.m.
The review, titled Extreme Heat and Human Mortality: A Review of Heat-Related Deaths in BC in Summer 2021, investigated the more than 800 deaths reported in the province from June 25 to July 1, 2021.
He found that 619 were related to heat.
According to the report, two-thirds of these heat-related deaths occurred among people aged 70 and over, while more than 80% of those who died were in three or more chronic disease registries.
Fifty-six percent of those who died lived alone, while almost all of the deaths, 98 percent, occurred indoors.
“Most of the dead were elderly adults with compromised health due to multiple chronic illnesses and living alone,” the report says.
Most of the dead were in homes without proper cooling systems, such as air conditioners or fans, the report added, and “more of the dead lived in socially or materially disadvantaged neighborhoods than the general population.”
The report calls for the identification and support of vulnerable populations and strategies to address long-term risk.
He also identified the need for a coordinated heat alert response system as announced by the province on Monday.
BC’s planned heat alert and response system will include two categories: heat warnings and extreme heat emergency alerts, Public Safety Secretary Mike Farnworth said Monday.
The government is ready to issue extreme heat emergency alerts to mobile devices through the national prepared alert system, which is already used to issue amber alerts and warnings of tsunamis, forest fires and floods, the security minister said. Public, Mike Farnworth.
“There will be a lot more notifications, a lot more in the media and a lot more communication with local governments,” Farnworth said Monday.