Hot nights not only prevent rest, but also directly influence health and mortality rates worldwide. This is the main conclusion of an international study led by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) that analyzed the effects of nighttime air temperature in 178 locations in 44 countries between 1990 and 2018. The research, carried out through research institutes in Catalonia, Galicia, and Andalusia, found a mortality rate of up to 3%.

The Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo) of the Carlos III Health Institute—the only tool that allows for a near-real-time snapshot of the deaths that occur daily in Spain—estimates that between May 16 and July 13, 300 people died in Catalonia from causes attributable to heat. In June, it is estimated that There were 55, and this July the figure has already risen to 245.

The heatwave that hit Europe between June 23 and July 2 pushed temperatures up to 4°C and increased the number of expected deaths for this period, especially in Italy, Catalonia, and France. The culprit behind these "silent deaths"—because they go unrecorded and official government estimates can take months to be published or never be made public—was the climate crisis caused by the burning of oil, gas, and coal, according to a study led by Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Deaths among women during pregnancy or childbirth have fallen by 40% over the past century, but the numbers are still staggering. In 2023, 260,000 women lost their lives worldwide during pregnancy, childbirth, or the immediate postpartum period. That's one maternal death every two minutes on average, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which fears the numbers will rise again due to cuts in international health cooperation being made by various countries, led this year by the United States.

Births in Spain have increased for the first time in a decade. This is a positive figure, but surrounded by nuances and in an unfavourable context. In fact, according to the data published this Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in 2024 there were 322,034 births in the State, an increase of 0.4% compared to 2023. Where they have increased the most is in Cantabria (+13.3%) and in the Balearic Islands (+). However, in 2024 there were also 439,146 deaths, 0.7% more than in the previous year. The natural balance, therefore, is negative: there were 114,937 more deaths than births.

Deaths attributable to the cronavirus pandemic just two years ago today could be many more than the 5.9 million reported in official figures between January 2020 and December 2021. A study published in the scientific journal The Lancet now argues that the real number of excess deaths could be three times higher, 18.2 million. The report compiled data on deaths from all causes by week and month during the two years since covid broke out, as well as the previous eleven years. From this information, it has made a model to estimate the overall excess deaths during the pandemic.

The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, made her investiture speech on Thursday completely oblivious to the terrifying statistics on excess mortality during 2020 that the national institute of statistics had made public. This body certified what other sources had already pointed out but which is now confirmed: excess mortality in the Community of Madrid far exceeded the figure in Catalonia and more than doubled the Spanish average: whereas the average excess of deaths was 17.7% in the whole of Spain, in Madrid it rose to 41.2%, while in Catalonia it was 23.5%. The Valencian Country and the Balearic Islands were below the average, with 10.4% and 7.1%, respectively.

On the anniversary of the first lockdown to protect us collectively from covid-19, it is time for balance and reflection. From a historical perspective, I find it very useful and sobering to compare it with the closest precedent: the 1918 flu. It was the last great world pandemic. In fact, we say 1918 but there were new outbreaks and it lasted until 1920. However, the highest mortality occurred in 1918. It is not known for certain how many people died worldwide from what became known as the "Spanish flu", not because it came from Spain but because it was in Spain, a neutral state during World War I, that it was openly talked about in the press. The events in Spain alerted the other countries that they were suffering from the flu, but under censorship. There is talk of between 50m and 100m deaths, which, compared to the world population at the time, represents between 2% and 4%. The equivalent of today's world population would have been between 150m and 300m dead. Fortunately, nothing like what has happened to date. The reactions of the authorities have been much quicker thanks to more globalised and transparent information. The reaction in terms of public health has been truly transversal and the healthcare and scientific reaction has been spectacular and exemplary.

The demographers assure that the statistics of natural movement and excess mortality have never awakened so much general interest as in the last eleven months, since the covid pandemic broke out. Deaths are the bitterest face of the epidemic and, at the same time, the indicator that best reflects the degree of penetration of the virus in the long term: the higher the transmission, the more fatalities there are. Spain is one of the countries that has suffered the greatest loss of life due to covid, a total of 58,319 according to the government headed by Pedro Sanchez, and Madrid is the most affected community after a first virulent wave and a steady and sustained trickle of cases since August.

Last April, when we still had no idea how the pandemic would affect us but we could already see that the effects would be devastating, I wrote in these same pages that, when we put this health crisis behind us, what would remain for history would be the number of deaths. The stream of data and indicators that we process every day to try to understand where we are and what can happen to us will be quickly forgotten, but when we explain to future generations how dramatic the times of the pandemic were, we will sum it up by highlighting the deaths it caused. As in any catastrophe, this is usually the macabre unit of measurement.

It comes as no surprise that as time has gone by and more has been learned about covid-19 and its clinical impact, more patients are able to leave hospital ICUs and overcome the acute phase of the disease. Beyond learning, however, there are other factors that, combined, can achieve dramatic reductions in hospital mortality. This is the case of Hospital Clínic in Barcelona, whose mortality rates have decreased from 11.6% to 1.4% in the period from March to September. In other words, if at the end of March one in ten people died in the health centre, in September it was one in a hundred, one of the lowest hospital mortality rates in Europe. The results of the study, led by Carolina García-Vidal, a member of the Infectious Diseases Service and researcher at IDIBAPS, have been published in the journal The Lancet.