COVID Restrictions ‘Possibly Contributed’ to Higher Cancer Mortality: Study

Medical workers treat a patient in the COVID-19 ward at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare system campus and medical center in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, on Jan. 11, 2022. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

Restrictions imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, including nationwide stay-at-home orders, could have resulted in a surge of cancer deaths during the first year of the pandemic, a study has found.

The study, published in the American Society of Clinical Oncology Journal on April 11, found a spike in the number of deaths with cancer as a contributing cause in 2020.