Covid -19 has caused 400,000 deaths in America disproportionately upon communities of color, poverty, immigrants, and older age. It has exposed the inequities within our health care system. However, the patients at greatest risk of death from Covid are those with cancer. Covid-19 has ravaged patients with cancer. While 1.8 percent of Americans with Covid-19 have died, those in long term care facilities have had a 12 percent mortality, and 26 percent of cancer patients who contracted the disease have died from the virus. Certainly cancer patients should be a priority in getting vaccinations.
This is personal: As a three-time cancer survivor and a doctor who has cared for patients with cancer for nearly 50 years, I have had and seen the suffering cancer can visit upon patients and their families. Now that there are vaccines, this vulnerable population should be just below health care workers and first responders.
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