Too high. For example in the northwest U.S. last year we had an unprecedented heat wave, over 110 degrees for multiple days in places where air conditioning is not common.
In the Portland region 72[1] people were reported to have died from it.
Going by the metro region with a population of 2.2 million, and assuming the heat-related deaths were underreported by half (round up to 100) that’s .0045%
> Going by the metro region with a population of 2.2 million, and assuming the heat-related deaths were underreported by half (round up to 100) that’s .0045%
That is deaths per pop, not rate of deaths. Assuming people live to 80 on average, you'd expect 1/80 to die each year. So multiply that number by 80 to translate it to per death instead of per pop, and you get around 0.36% of deaths that year in Portland was due to that heatwave. 0.36% line up really well to the reported 0.4% figure from the article.
It's very hard to compare ~110 F in a very dry region compared to ~110 F in a wet region. 110 F at 70% humidity is a heat index of 160 F, close to unsurvivable. The highest recorded heat index was 178 F in Saudi Arabia, with an actual temperature of 108 F.
Another thing to consider is heat waves are much worse in regions without reliable or universal air conditioning. This could explain the much higher death tolls in South America compared to North America.
