Part I — Situation overview

A third-degree heat alert came into force for the whole country from midnight on 30 July 2026: the national chief medical officer ordered the highest level from 0.00 on Thursday until 24.00 on Tuesday. In parallel, HungaroMet, the national meteorological service, issued a second-degree, orange warning for nine counties — Bács-Kiskun, Csongrád-Csanád, Fejér, Győr-Moson-Sopron, Komárom-Esztergom, Pest, Tolna, Vas and Veszprém — because in these the daily mean temperature may rise above 27 degrees Celsius, and on Friday above 29 degrees in some counties. The afternoon peak temperature is expected between 32 and 37 degrees, with no precipitation. The Minister of Social Affairs and Family announced that the nationwide series of measures known as the red code is coming into force again, opening institutions to those in need according to a special procedure, and focusing in particular on children, the elderly, people with disabilities, the chronically ill and homeless people.

The heat is accompanied by a simultaneous water crisis. Minister for the Living Environment László Gajdos ordered extraordinary alert status on Wednesday, because in 66 of Hungary’s 84 water-shortage management districts the drought index is above the level of three — the indicator stands at 3.52, which means the “extraordinary drought” category, and according to the forecasts it may approach level 4 within a few days. Across 89 per cent of the country’s territory there is moderate or worse agricultural drought: severe on 1.5 per cent, high on 59.4 per cent, moderate on 28.4 per cent. According to HungaroMet’s analysis, the state of vegetation is in several places worse than during the summer drought of 2022, which was called historic. In the Körös region unprecedented water replenishment was needed: the Körös Region Water Directorate is maintaining summer impoundment levels for the entire year, and is lifting water with pumps from the Békésszentandrás weir so as to sustain the region’s supply essentially with water arriving from the Tisza. Budapest Waterworks issued an extraordinary warning: the riverbed stretches laid bare by the record-low Danube water level belong in part to the bank-filtered water bases supplying the drinking water of Budapest and its agglomeration — more than two million people — so entering and remaining there is prohibited by law. The Danube Regional Waterworks signalled further water restrictions, and the Northern Hungarian Regional Waterworks asked people to forgo filling pools and washing cars.

Actual protective action, however, takes place not in the state alert system but in the settlements. In Pécs the municipality operates six mist gates and five fountains alongside close to fifty drinking-water access points; in Szeged there is a mist gate on Klauzál Square and a new drinking tap in front of the Ferenc Móra Museum; in Szentes there are cooling centres in six public institutions and mist gates at two locations. In Budapest, according to the Lord Mayor’s announcement, the deployment of emergency wells has begun, and at the busiest railway stations drinking fountains help travellers. This enumeration is at once encouraging and worrying: encouraging, because it is functioning local practice; worrying, because the list also shows that the content and standard of protection today varies from settlement to settlement. In MIAK’s reading, this is the core of the problem. A third-degree alert today is, in the legal sense, a signal: it warns, informs, calls upon — but it does not order. Actual protection — drinking water, cooling centres, the reorganisation of working hours, institutional procedures — is largely provided by the municipalities and the utilities, without system-level financing and a uniform protocol. The partial lifting of the lorry ban shows the same structure in reverse: a transport concession justified by the heat, to which no public impact estimate attaches as to what accident and environmental balance the increased night-time heavy-goods traffic brings in extreme heat.

Part II — Literature foundation

Measuring the health burden of heat is today not a question of scientific dispute but a question of indicators — and this is set out by three official, mutually complementary sources. The WHO’s European Health Report 2024 treats heat mortality as a distinct public-health indicator to be tracked, and brings two significant methodological innovations: on the one hand it estimates heat-related deaths at a pan-European level, on the other hand it also measures exposure, in heatwave person-days, by age group — that is, it quantifies not only the consequence but also the risk. The OECD’s Health at a Glance — Europe 2024 describes the same phenomenon from the side of system resilience: the growing frequency and severity of heatwaves is a question of the resilience of health systems, and the age-group breakdown of heat mortality is clearly concentrated in the older cohorts. And the European Commission’s State of Health in the EU — Synthesis Report 2023 adds the Hungarian vulnerability profile: in Hungary circulatory diseases are the leading group of causes of death, and the shortfall in life expectancy relative to the EU average was 4.5 years in 2022 — that is, the very disease groups dominate whose course thermal load worsens most strongly. Together these three sources support the point that heat protection is not a welfare supplement but a measurable public-health intervention. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in the 6.4 Literature in detail section.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures which turn the heat alert from a warning into substantive protection.

3.1 A statutory package of measures tied to the alert level (before the 2027 heat season)

MIAK proposes that a package of measures fixed in legislation and starting automatically should attach to the three levels of the heat alert, rather than a discretionary local decision. The elements of the package, differentiated by level: rules for work performed outdoors (a mandatory rest-time ratio, the provision of drinking water, restriction of work in the hottest hours for physically demanding activities), the procedures for schools, kindergartens, care homes for the elderly and inpatient institutions, a population-proportionate minimum number of free water-distribution points, and a minimum standard of cooling on public transport. The package should also carry a financing rule: according to MIAK it is untenable that the measure is mandatory while its cost falls entirely on the municipality — a normative state contribution tied to the number of alert days must be assigned to the heat-protection minimum. This is the direct application of the logic of the K5 just transition programme point: the burden of heat falls disproportionately on the poorest and on outdoor workers, so protection cannot be a privilege determined by wealth or settlement size. The present red-code series of measures is a good starting point, but the opening of the social institution network is only one element of the above.

3.2 A public heat-vulnerability map and a weekly excess-mortality report (within 12 months)

The second proposal concerns the data side. MIAK proposes a public heat-vulnerability map broken down by settlement — in large cities by district — which projects three data layers onto one another: the measured strength of the urban heat-island effect, social exposure (elderly single-person households, low income bands, demand for homeless services, the concentration of outdoor workplaces) and local healthcare capacity. The map is not a scientific end in itself: it determines where mist gates, cooling centres, emergency wells and targeted home care must be provided first, and it makes it verifiable after the fact whether the resources reached the most exposed places. Alongside it, MIAK asks for a weekly excess-mortality report during the heat season, broken down by age group, in a form comparable with the methodology used by the WHO (see 6.4.1). This is the substantive extension to heat of the E4 prevention data programme: the essence of the programme is that the data should be generated before the intervention, not be an after-the-fact statistic. A weekly report also disciplines in the political sense: the result of heat protection is shown not by press releases but by mortality data.

3.3 A justification obligation for transport and water-use concessions justified by heat (within 60 days)

The third proposal is a procedural safeguard. Concessions invoking heat — now the partial lifting of the weekend lorry ban between 10 p.m. on 1 August and 6 a.m. on 2 August, at other times the temporary exceedance of a thermal load limit or a water-abstraction concession — should be subject to justification and to evaluation after the fact. MIAK proposes that every such decision be accompanied by a short, public impact estimate: what is the justification, how large is the expected benefit (here: reaching a rest area, avoiding damage to goods), and what is the expected cost (the accident and noise burden of increased night-time heavy-goods traffic). This is not an argument against concessions — a consignment of goods standing idle in the heat without cooling is genuine damage — but it prevents the one-off exception from becoming, years later, a basis for reference and then a routine. The same yardstick is to be applied to water-use concessions, where the balance is between agricultural water replenishment and the protection of drinking-water bases: in the Körös region irrigation is now being sustained with unprecedented water transfers, and the ecological bill of such interventions must also be documented (MG5).

The three proposals are bound together by a single principle: an alert is not a measure. A warning becomes protection when a legal consequence, financing and measurement attach to it — if any of these is missing, the system leaves the most exposed under the weakest protection. This is not the fault of the present government, nor of the previous one: the legal binding force of heat protection has been missing for years, and precisely for that reason the regulation for the next season can be begun now, in the middle of the season.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Society A statutory minimum gives protection independent of settlement; the care of the most exposed groups becomes predictable The mandatory minimum may drag present good practice back to the minimum level if there is no incentive attached to a higher standard
Healthcare The weekly excess-mortality report gives real-time feedback, so intervention becomes targeted Data publication is not in itself protection; if capacity does not follow, the report merely documents the damage
Public administration The financing rule settles the division of tasks between the state and the municipality A normative contribution tied to the number of alert days may encourage either over-planning or indeed under-planning
Agriculture Documenting water-replenishment interventions makes agricultural and ecological water use comparable Stricter documentation may slow acute irrigation intervention if it contains no expedited procedure

The main deliberative question is the tension between a mandatory minimum and local room for manoeuvre. A statutory heat-protection minimum is needed because in the present system protection depends on how inventive and how well-off the settlement is — and at the weakest municipalities this is paired with the greatest exposure. At the same time a central minimum may also push the present front-runners in the direction of “the minimum is enough”, so the regulation must set a floor, not a ceiling, and the normative contribution is best tied to performance rather than to mere presence. The second sensitive point is outdoor work: here protection and employer cost collide, and the rule becomes risky if it is so strict that it pushes towards undeclared work — MIAK therefore regards as realistic a solution built on the rest-time ratio and the provision of water, verifiable but not prohibiting work.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (proposed performance indicators)

According to MIAK the following performance indicators (KPIs, in English Key Performance Indicator) are worth tracking over 12–24 months:

  • Excess mortality during heat, published weekly, broken down by age group, in a form comparable with the WHO’s methodology — the aim being a measurable decrease in the excess mortality of heatwave weeks relative to the 2023–2026 baseline.
  • Heat-protection coverage: the number of free water-access points, mist gates and air-conditioned cooling centres per ten thousand inhabitants, broken down by settlement type — the aim being that even in the most exposed settlements it should not be lower than the large-city average.
  • The existence of the statutory package of measures: the publication of the mandatory measures tied to the alert level and of the associated financing rule — proposed deadline: before the 2027 heat season.
  • The operation of the heat-vulnerability map: public, broken down by settlement (in large cities by district), published and updated annually — proposed deadline: 12 months.
  • The share of heat-justified concessions accompanied by an impact estimate: the aim is 100 per cent, that is, that every such decision be accompanied by a public justification and a short impact estimate.

5.2 Summary

The key message: the heat alert in its present form is information, not protection — and MIAK asks the decision-maker to turn into a legal obligation, before the next season, what today is local goodwill. Concretely, three things: a financed package of measures tied to the alert level, a public heat-vulnerability map with a weekly excess-mortality report, and a justification obligation for concessions justified by heat. And it asks the public to enquire not about the level of the alert but about the content of the protection — because the former appears every summer, the latter does not.

Two MIAK foundational values are in play on this topic. Universal representation, because the risk of heat is not distributed equally: the exposure of the outdoor worker, the elderly person living alone, the chronically ill patient and the homeless person is an order of magnitude greater than the average, yet they are precisely the ones with the fewest resources to organise their own protection — if the rule is not about them, it is about nobody. And data-drivenness, because the effectiveness of heat protection is measurable: the weekly excess-mortality figure shows whether the measure worked, and with that the question removes itself from political dispute. These two values together give MIAK’s yardstick: mandatory protection for the most exposed, and public data on whether the protection genuinely works.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The press framing by spectrum

The liberal-left and public-affairs band worked in a double frame. One was the meteorological chronicle: Telex and 24.hu followed the levels and the county warnings (“A second-degree alert has now been issued for nine counties because of the heat”; “The third-degree heat alert has come into force”). The other — and from a policy point of view this is the more valuable — was an inventory of local protective action: Telex’s compilation entitled “Municipalities are preparing for the extraordinary heat with drinking fountains and mist gates” listed city by city how many drinking taps, mist gates and cooling centres are in operation, and with that — presumably unintentionally — documented precisely what MIAK regards as the core of the problem: protection varies from settlement to settlement. 24.hu also carried the agricultural and water-management side of the drought, with a report on the unprecedented water replenishment of the Körös rivers.

The economic band approached from the direction of critical infrastructure: Portfolio led not with the temperature data but with Budapest Waterworks’ extraordinary warning, and placed the emphasis on the fact that the Danube riverbed stretches laid bare belong in part to vulnerable bank-filtered water bases that, together with the agglomeration, supply the drinking water of more than two million people. This framing is the most policy-oriented of the daily offering: it treats heat not as an inconvenience but as a security-of-supply question.

The pro-government and conservative band placed the alert-status announcement at the centre: Magyar Nemzet the nationwide ordering of the third-degree alert, Mandiner the extraordinary alert status because of drought across three quarters of the country. ATV carried the Minister of Social Affairs and Family’s announcement about the red code, with the enumeration of vulnerable groups and a call to look out for one another — this is the most solidarity-oriented framing, and at the same time the only one that also named protection at the level of a human gesture. The scientific background appeared in only one place, in HVG’s interview with a climate researcher, which expressly distinguished the present heat dome from the El Niño phenomenon. What appeared in none of the bands: what legal obligation attaches to the alert level — that is, the gap between the alert and the protection itself.

6.2 Facts and data

Datum Value Source
Duration of the third-degree heat alert from 0.00 on 30 July 2026 until 24.00 on 4 August, nationwide order of the national chief medical officer
Second-degree (orange) warning 9 counties: Bács-Kiskun, Csongrád-Csanád, Fejér, Győr-Moson-Sopron, Komárom-Esztergom, Pest, Tolna, Vas, Veszprém HungaroMet, 29 July 2026
Daily mean temperature above 27 °C in several places on Thursday, above 29 °C in some counties on Friday HungaroMet forecast
Peak temperature 32–37 °C HungaroMet forecast
Drought index 3.52 (“extraordinary drought”), may also approach level 4 statement of the Minister for the Living Environment, 29 July 2026
Critical water-shortage management districts above the level of three in 66 of 84 districts ministerial statement, 29 July 2026
Territorial extent of agricultural drought 89% of the country: 1.5% severe, 59.4% high, 28.4% moderate HungaroMet drought monitoring
State of vegetation worse in several places than during the summer drought of 2022 HungaroMet analysis
Drinking-water base affected the bank-filtered water bases supply more than 2 million inhabitants of Budapest and its agglomeration statement of Budapest Waterworks
Water level of Lake Velence 33 cm, the lowest since measurements began; bathing ban at 5 beaches from 23 July National Directorate of Water Management, government office decision
Partial lifting of the lorry ban from 10 p.m. on 1 August 2026 until 6 a.m. on 2 August, above 7.5 tonnes Ministry of Transport and Investment
European heat mortality 2022 above 61,000 in 35 member states WHO: European Health Report 2024
Age concentration of heat mortality approx. 85% of the 2022 summer heat mortality among those over 65 OECD: Health at a Glance — Europe 2024
Hungarian life-expectancy shortfall relative to the EU average 4.5 years (2022) European Commission: State of Health in the EU 2023

The two most important relationships in the table are the simultaneity of heat and water, and the concentration of exposure. The 3.52 value of the drought index and the critical state of 66 of the 84 districts mean that heat acts not only directly, through health, but also through the channel of water supply and food production. And the age concentration of heat mortality explains why general information is not enough: if the greater part of the deaths arises in a single, well identifiable group, then protection too must be targeted.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Environment and climate (programme points) — the distribution of the burdens of heat protection is the subject of the just transition programme (programme point ID: K5); the data layers of the heat-vulnerability map fit the monitoring system of measurable climate targets (programme point ID: K1).
  • Healthcare (programme points) — the weekly excess-mortality report is the application of the prevention data programme (programme point ID: E4) extended to heat; the air-conditioning and energy demand of healthcare institutions is part of the green healthcare roadmap (programme point ID: E7).
  • Agriculture (programme points) — the documentation of water-replenishment interventions and the rulebook of irrigation communities are the subject of the community resource-management framework (programme point ID: MG5); the data basis of drought-damage estimation would be provided by the sensor network of the precision agriculture programme (programme point ID: MG1).

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 WHO: European Health Report 2024

The WHO’s European report treats heat in a separate chapter, as a measurable public-health risk. According to the report’s main finding, “one of the most significant health impacts of climate change in the WHO European Region is the increasing exposure of vulnerable populations to heat stress and heatwaves, which has led to a rise in heat-related mortality.” The numerical data bear this out: in 2022 more than 61 thousand heat-related deaths were estimated in 35 member states, and among those over 65 the period 2018–2022 brought 35,864 more deaths than the baseline period of 2000–2004. The report’s methodological innovation, however, is the separate measurement of exposure: in 2023 — compared with the 1986–2005 baseline — infants experienced 109.9 million and those over 65 experienced 1,502.7 million excess heatwave person-days in the region. From the point of view of the Hungarian proposal this latter indicator is the most important: exposure data is generated in advance, mortality data after the fact — if we track only the latter, we always react late. The WHO also records that curbing the harmful health effects requires local measures, international cooperation and compliance with the climate agreements alike. The proposal for a Hungarian weekly excess-mortality report is therefore not a domestic eccentricity but a connection to the international indicator system.

📖 Source: WHO: European Health Report 2024

6.4.2 OECD: Health at a Glance — Europe 2024

The OECD publication approaches heat from the side of system resilience: the foreword records that “the growing health impacts of climate change, such as heatwaves becoming more frequent and severe, resulting in more heat-related illness and death, underline the need for more resilient health systems and a sustainable, green transition.” The report treats the summer of 2022 as a case study: despite the fall in Covid-19 mortality, excess mortality remained high in numerous European countries, partly because of the return of influenza and other infections, partly because of the summer heatwaves — by the estimates, more than 60 thousand heat-related deaths occurred in Europe in the summer of 2022, and about 85 per cent of these affected those over 65. This proportion is the empirical basis of the targeting logic of the Hungarian proposal: if the overwhelming majority of the deaths arises in one identifiable age group, then a heat protocol built into the procedures of care homes for the elderly, home care and general practice is worth an order of magnitude more than general public information. The OECD also warns that technological progress — from diagnostics to the application of artificial intelligence — improves access only if the consideration of equity prevails alongside it; the proposal for a heat-vulnerability map seeks to translate precisely this equity consideration into data.

📖 Source: OECD: Health at a Glance — Europe 2024

6.4.3 European Commission: State of Health in the EU — Synthesis Report 2023

The European Commission’s synthesis report fits the present Hungarian situation at two points. On the one hand it records the heat risk at EU level: climate change manifests itself in the form of more frequent extreme weather events and heatwaves, which by estimates caused about 61 thousand deaths in 2022, “in the hottest European summer ever measured.” On the other hand — and this is the more important — the country-profile part of the report gives the Hungarian vulnerability background: the pandemic interrupted the gradual convergence of Hungarian life expectancy towards the EU average, and the shortfall was 4.5 years in 2022, while the pre-pandemic improvement was given primarily by the decline in circulatory-system mortality — in Hungary the leading group of causes of death. These two facts together explain why the risk of heat is greater here than the EU average: thermal load worsens the course of circulatory and respiratory diseases most strongly, that is, the Hungarian structure of causes of death is particularly sensitive to heat. The report names further investment in prevention as a distinct key message — the heat-protection minimum and the extension of the prevention data programme to heat are the Hungarian translation of that call.

📖 Source: European Commission: State of Health in the EU — Synthesis Report 2023

6.5 International comparison

The legal binding force of heat protection is not a novelty in Europe, only it is not uniform. In several southern and western member states an express labour-law and institutional procedure attaches to the heat alert levels — from the restriction of physical work in the hottest hours to a mandatory rest-time ratio and the employer’s obligation to supply water to the workers concerned — and in several large cities a district-level heat-island map is in operation, on which the tree-planting and shading programmes are planned. The EU-level framework is provided by the civil protection mechanism and climate-adaptation reporting: member states also report heat-health action plans in their adaptation strategies, so comparison is possible. The lesson for the Hungarian situation is twofold. On the one hand, the model does not need to be invented: all three elements — the heat-protection protocol, the vulnerability map and the weekly mortality monitoring — are functioning somewhere in Europe, so adoption is a question of implementation, not of concept. On the other hand, the indicator systems of the WHO and the OECD make it possible to measure Hungarian performance not against our own press releases but against comparable international data — and this, according to MIAK, is the only serious yardstick.

Environment and climate

  • K5 — Just transition programme
  • K1 — Measurable climate targets
  • K3 — Pollution monitoring

Healthcare

  • E4 — Prevention data programme
  • E7 — Green healthcare — net-zero roadmap

Agriculture

  • MG1 — Precision agriculture programme
  • MG5 — Community resource-management framework

Proposed new programme point: Heat-protection minimum and financing rule — a mandatory package of measures tied to the alert level, with a normative state contribution adjusted to the number of alert days — for the Environment and climate and Healthcare areas.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 30 July 2026 — topic 2):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 WHO: European Health Report 2024
  • 📖 OECD: Health at a Glance — Europe 2024
  • 📖 European Commission: State of Health in the EU — Synthesis Report 2023

Note: the local file path of the book does NOT appear in the visible text of the blog — only the author and the title.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Environment and climate (programme points; programme point ID: K5)
  • MIAK policy area: Healthcare (programme points; programme point ID: E4)
  • MIAK policy area: Agriculture (programme points; programme point ID: MG5)
  • MIAK press monitor, 30 July 2026 — topic 2, score: 86/100

Additional public data sources:

  • HungaroMet hazard-warning archive and drought monitoring
  • Hydrological data publication of the National Directorate of Water Management, statements of Budapest Waterworks
  • EuroMOMO European excess-mortality monitoring, HCSO weekly mortality data
  • Copernicus European Drought Observatory

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