New way to track hot summer days from Metro Health

SAN ANTONIO — There is now another way to track hot days in San Antonio. The CDC launched an online tool showing the level of heat risk in your area.

Wednesday’s risk in Bexar County is moderate, which means people who are sensitive to heat could have health impacts.

And that is data Metro Health is tracking through a new dashboard. It tracks the number of heat-related illnessess, such as dehydration, fainting, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

So far this year, 194 heat-related illnesses or HRI’s have been reported. Most have been heat exhaustion.

These numbers are from people who went to emegency rooms in Bexar County with heat illness. And this is just one part of it.

Further down the dashboard, it breaks down the number of HRI’s by the day’s heat index.

On June 4, our biggest spike of heat-related illnesses happened with 14 cases reported.

The heat index was 115 degrees that day.

The dashboard also contains data on illnesses by gender, age and year. And really what it comes down to is awareness.

Metro Health did this as a safety and prevention tool for the public.

“This is just something that we’re tracking to see,” said Rita Espinosa, Metro Health Chief of Epidemiology. “And as you know, that more heat that we’re experiencing, you know, do we also see that with the heat related illnesses, our hope would be no, because we’re getting these prevention messages out there and that individuals are doing the things that they can to prevent these.”

Metro Health will continue to track this data until September or October and that’s really dependent on when temperatures start to fall.

To find this dashboard, just visit the city’s website.

Its under the “Beat the Heat” campaign which includes information on cooling centers and heat safety tips.

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