Pandemic Denies Cancer Patients Life-Saving Treatments

When Adrian Rogers (46) was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in the summer of 2018, the term 'coronavirus' was literally unknown outside a small group of scientists and medical professionals directly dealing with it. Only two-and-a-half years later, however, it was to push Rogers and millions of other people to death worldwide; and not necessarily because they were infected with the incredibly dangerous pathogen.

Rogers was forced to miss a scheduled, potentially life-saving operation in Manchester in April 2020 because of the overburdened health system in the UK and sadly did not live to see the next spring. The planned surgery could not go ahead because Rogers' immune system was already compromised because of the multiple rounds of chemotherapy he had received as a cancer patient and the doctors considered it to be too risky to place him in an intensive care unit with coronavirus patients post-operation.

"I definitely feel we wouldn't be where we are now if he had got to have his operation," his wife, Amanda, was quoted as saying by the BBC.

As of March 25, 2021, nearly 2.75 million people died because of symptoms related to Covid-19, the multi-system disorder the novel coronavirus causes, around the world. The number of indirect fatalities like Rogers, though, is not and possibly shall never be known.

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