The number of deaths due to disruption of services is likely to outweigh the number of deaths due to COVID because of the diversion of resources into COVID, says Richard Sullivan of Kings College, London. The cessation and delay of cancer care will cause considerable avoidable suffering. Cancer screening services have stopped, which means we will miss our chance to catch many cancers when they are treatable and curable, such as cervical, bowel, and breast. When we do restart normal service delivery after the lockdown has lifted the backlog of cases will be a huge challenge to the healthcare system.
We read, October 6, in the Daily Mail coming out of the UK, "Health Secretary, Matt Hancock says, "Cancer patients may only be guaranteed treatment if COVID-19 stays under control."
Almost 2.5 million people missed out on cancer screenings, referrals, or treatment at the height of lockdown even though the NHS was never overwhelmed." They have the honesty in the UK to say that. Experts now fear the number of people dying as a result of the delays triggered by the treatment of Coronavirus patients could end up being responsible for as many deaths as the pandemic itself." Now we won't see that kind of effect right away. But it does mean that people who might have lived 15 to 20 years may live just another 3 or 4.
United Nations reported in April 2020, saying that "Economic hardships generated by the radical interruptions of commerce could result in hundreds of thousands additional child deaths in 2020." UNICEF later increased that number to 1.2 million child deaths. At Oxford University, Professor Sunetra Gupta has reminded us several times of the UN's predictions, that as many as 130 million people could be at risk of starvation because of the lockdown because of the possibility of famine in several dozen places around the globe.
Now, who are the ones who don't care about human life?
And that's not all. In Oakland, California we have Benjamin Miller of the Well Being Trust, as co-author on a study of death and despair, that's drug abuse or alcohol abuse or suicide, that an excess of 75,000 deaths would occur, that is above what would normally occur.
The CDC itself estimates that in the United States alone there will be 93,000 excess, non-COVID deaths this year because of what's going on, including over 42,000 from cardiovascular conditions, over 10,000 from diabetes, and 3,600 from cancer.
A recent UK study found that the risk of death because of C-19 lockdowns increased 53% among seniors with dementia and another 123% among seniors with severe mental illness.
For four decades, Indian Nobel Peace Laureate, Kailash Satyarthi rescued thousands of children from slavery and human trafficking and he fears that that's going to be reversed.
For options on treating cancer, start here.
