What It’s Like to Have Cancer in a Pandemic
In a devastating story, reporter Marion Renault interviews several people dealing with cancer diagnoses during the Covid-19 pandemic and navigating interrupted care that not only feels risky to their health but is also emotionally difficult, like going in for treatment without family members. Renault writes:
Oncologists, too, say the high-stakes work of treating cancer has become even more precarious during the pandemic. Over the course of 2020, cancer specialists have struggled to understand how to protect their patients, whose immune systems are compromised by therapies like chemotherapy and radiation. “The burning question,” says Jeremy Warner, MD, MS, an oncologist at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Tennessee, “is can we treat our patients the same way now as we did before?” What’s worse: potential Covid-19 exposure or delayed treatment?
Read more about the issue below.
