Where Did Heart Disease and Cancer Go as COVID-19 Spread?

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Where Did Heart Disease and Cancer Go as COVID-19 Spread?

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The focus of medical discussions in America has largely turned to the causes, symptoms, deaths, and cures for COVID-19. Lost to a signficant extent in the discussion about health is what remains the greatest causes of death in the country–heart disease and cancer. As a matter of fact, people are less likely to go for care and diagnoses of these illnesses, due to fear of infection.

Cancer killed 599,108 Americans, according to the most recent year for which the CDC posted complete numbers. Heart disease killed 647,457. Some of the risks for COVID-19 deaths and the two others are common. People who are older are at greater risk along with those who have heart problems, respiratory issues, and are obese.

In a recent interview, Dignity Health thoracic surgeon Dr. Costanzo DiPerna commented that “Many patients are concerned about coming to visit us, to be screened for cancer, to be surveilled for their previous cancers we’ve taken out.” His analysis has been echoed time and again around the country. People with cancer who wait for treatment are much more likely to get sicker, or even die. Another issue is that hospitals and doctors financially burdened by the spread of COVID-19 may never see these patients at all That causes people who are sick with heart disease and cancer to look for treatment elsewhere.

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The American Heart Association warned about the problem. Deaths from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes actually spread as COVID-19 did. In an analysis, the Association pointed out:

The CDC reported in late June that in the 10 weeks after the pandemic was declared a national emergency on March 13, hospital emergency department visits declined by 23% for heart attacks, 20% for strokes and 10% for uncontrolled high blood sugar in people with diabetes.

The dangerous health effects and deaths for these diseases did not go away. But, in many ways, they were put on the back burner.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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