ABSTRACT
As COVID-19 spread across the globe, many areas were simultaneously hit by “once in a lifetime” tropical storms, heat waves and wildfires. The confluence of extreme climate-related illnesses, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, not only jeopardized the global community's ability to control the virus, it revealed how ill-prepared most countries are to manage intersecting crises. As an example, Tropical Storm Cristobal hit Louisiana on June 7, 2020, triggering several coastal evacuation orders (Salas, Shultz & Solomon, 2020). The evacuations forced large groups of people to take shelter together, creating a potential breeding ground for virus transmission. As another example, the gigafire in California (Kaur, 2020) not only caused serious health problems for those with chronic pulmonary disease, it also increased patients' chances of dying if they contracted COVID-19. Catastrophic events, fueled by climate change, continue to cause major disruptions to healthcare and education systems amid subsequent waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Physical risk factors precipitated by intertwining crises as well as the psychological implications will become more formidable and complex as the climate crisis intensifies.
