Across the country, people avoided hospitals and delayed essential care due to concerns about the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the early months of the pandemic. This includes people who have cancer and are at an increased risk of COVID-19 due to their impaired immune systems. 

The recent spike in infections has rekindled these fears, and carries serious consequences for people who may be delaying needed care for cancer. 

“Cancer is going to kill a lot more people this year than COVID-19—by a lot,” Benjamin G. Neel, MD, PhD, director of NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, tells The Washington Post. “You’d have to be crazy not to go see your doctor.”

Read more from The Washington Post.