An amber cold-health alert has been issued for the Humber region, meaning the weather is expected to have “significant” impact across health and social care, including a potential rise in deaths.
The alert is in effect from noon on Thursday, January 2 until noon on Wednesday, January 8. It covers the whole of the Yorkshire and Humber region; similar amber alerts have also been widely sounded across the UK.
The weather health alerting system is provided by the UK Health Security Agency in partnership with the Met Office. A statement about the newly-issued amber alert said: “Forecast weather is expected to have significant impacts across health and social care services, including:
- A rise in deaths, particularly among those aged 65 and over or with health conditions. We may also see impacts on younger age groups
- A likely increase in demand for health services
- Temperatures inside places like hospitals, care homes, and clinics dropping below the levels recommended for assessing health risks
- Challenges keeping indoor temperatures at the recommended 18°C leading to more risk to vulnerable people
- Staffing issues due to external factors (such as travel delays)
- Other sectors starting to observe impacts (such as transport and energy)
The alerting system provides an early warning when adverse temperatures are likely to impact on the health and wellbeing of the population. A Met Office yellow warning for snow and ice has been issued for large swathes of England, including Hull and parts of East Yorkshire, taking in Beverley and Driffield and all areas west, on Saturday.
In effect from midday on Saturday, January 4 and all day on Sunday, January 5, the warning is for a risk of heavy snow, and some freezing rain in places, which may cause some disruption over the weekend. The Met Office warned people of what they could expect:
- A small chance that power cuts will occur and other services, such as mobile phone coverage, may be affected
- There is a slight chance that some rural communities could become cut off
- A small chance of injuries from slips and falls on icy surfaces
- There is a chance of travel delays on roads with some stranded vehicles and passengers, along with delayed or cancelled rail and air travel.
Temperatures on Saturday are likely to be no higher than 3C during the daytime but feeling more like zero. Thermometers are set to climb a little higher later on Sunday evening to highs of around 8C but still feeling closer to 4C.
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