Covid-19 Is Causing More Than One Health Crisis

So many ordinary activities have been put on hold in the time of coronavirus, but one stands out as an especially punishing loss: People have sharply curtailed their non-Covid health care — not just easily postponed checkups, but also tumor removals, diabetes tests, prenatal visits, kidney transplants, vaccines, even emergency care after heart attacks. Since early March, in-person doctor visits have fallen about 60% in the U.S. Cancer screenings have dropped 86% to 94%. And until recently many hospitals were turning away all patients except those with Covid-19, often by order of state officials.

Epidemiologists assume that the pause in non-Covid health care accounts for an as-yet-unmeasured share of the tens of thousands of “excess deaths” that have happened in the past couple of months in the U.S. This is a danger in any epidemic; during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-16, increased deaths from measles, malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis ultimately exceeded deaths from Ebola.