Of course, the unease isn’t just or even mostly economic.
Texas oncologist Debra Patt, MD, tells the news service cancer mortality, for example, is likely to skyrocket in the wake of the pandemic.
Patients who should be getting screened, monitored or treated are “scared to go in the hospital unless they absolutely have to,” Patt says. “And even when the patients are willing, it’s hard to get things done.”
The article also cites CDC data showing emergency-department utilization dropping 42% during the first 10 weeks of the COVID crisis. In that same period, ER care for patients with possible heart attacks fell 23% and for those with likely stroke by 20%.