If you have cancer or heart disease symptoms, get them checked.

 "Cancer won't wait for the pandemic and neither should you."

This is a quote from Peter Rooney, Chief Operating Officer of the NHS's North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group, speaking earlier this year at a meeting of Cumbria Health Scrutiny committee about the need for anyone invited for cancer screening or showing symptoms which could potentially be cancer to get themselves checked.

One of the most malign consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is that we are building up a backlog of undiagnosed cases of other serious conditions such as cancer which have not been detected or treated either because of disruption to the non-COID work of the NHS or because people have not been coming forward for fear of catching the coronavirus if they come to a hospital or GP surgery.

Although the majority of the excess deaths experienced by Britain and indeed most countries from march onwards compared with deaths at the same time in other recent years appear to have been directly caused or contributed to by the Coronavirus - in this country the number of deaths with COVID-19 mentioned on the death certificate represents the large majority, but by no means all, of the excess deaths recorded in the first eight months of 2020. 

Some of the difference may be due to an underestimate of the direct impact of the Coronavirus, but there is reason to suspect that a substantial part of the difference between estimated COVID deaths and total excess deaths during the first wave is due to the indirect effects of COVID-19, including deaths from other conditions for which the deceased would have been successfully treated if the pandemic had never happened.

It is imperative that we don't allow a further buildup of undiagnosed and potentially fatal diseases such as cancer.

If you - or anyone you love - has symptoms which could be cancer or heart disease, you will face a greater increased risk of dying avoidably from those conditions if you do not seek medical help and get them checked than you face in increased risk of dying from Coronavirus if you do.