Click here for more articles by Kormedi.com. A heat wave with temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius has continued across Korea. President Lee Jae Myung said during a recent meeting with senior secretaries and aides that the current heat wave is “effectively a national disaster situation,” stressing that the government should maximize the level, scope and speed of its policy response to protect people’s lives and and ensure public safety. In a related development, an interesting study from the United States found that mortality rates in large cities may decrease as the area covered by tree shade increases. A research team at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine tracked changes in the city of Chicago, Illinois, from 2011 to 2021. The researchers examined data including tree canopy coverage, peak summer temperatures and the number of deaths. The study found that increases in annual tree canopy coverage were associated with lower mortality. A 1 percent increase in shaded area was associated with an approximately 9.8 percent decrease in overall mortality. By cause of