More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. Beyond those deaths are other casualties of the pandemic — Americans seriously ill with other ailments who avoided care because they feared contracting the coronavirus at hospitals and clinics.
The toll from their deaths may be close to the toll from Covid-19. The trends are clear and concerning. Government orders to shelter in place and health care leaders’ decisions to defer nonessential care successfully prevented the spread of the virus. But these policies — complicated by the loss of employer-provided health insurance as people lost their jobs — have had the unintended effect of delaying care for some of our sickest patients.
To prevent further harm, people with serious, complex and acute illnesses must now return to the doctor for care.
Read the whole op-ed in The New York Times from Dr. Mihaljevic, chief executive and president of the Cleveland Clinic and Dr. Farrugia, chief executive and president of the Mayo Clinic.