LAUSR

Since its outbreak in China in December 2019, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly worldwide (1). The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. By May 8, 2020, the virus had caused 3,759,967 cases and 259,474 deaths (2). Cancer patients are at a higher risk of getting COVID-19. When cancer patients are infected, cancer treatments need to be rearranged. Since they are also at risk of serious illness from COVID-19, their progression of symptoms could be faster (3–5). In order to reduce and avoid cross-infection of COVID-19, many hospitals have taken measures to reduce the number of afebrile patients. One of the measures that have affected the vast majority of cancer patients is delaying or suspending cancer treatment, which is dangerous for such patients. To ensure the cancer patients get essential treatments, as early as February 17, 2020, the National Health Commission issued a notice that emphasizes the necessity of providing daily medical services and maintaining reasonable medical functioning while fighting the epidemic. It also mentioned that rigidly ceasing daily medical services is neither wise nor advisable. Due to the excellent efforts of isolation, quarantine, social distancing, and community containment in the last 3 months (1, 6), the number of new cases of COVID-19 in Hubei Province was decreased to zero for the first time on March 18. Since then, new cases reported in China mainly came from abroad. The situation of China’s epidemic prevention and control has entered a new period, a post-peak period. Now, it is urgent to resume the routine treatment of cancer patients. Under the background of occupied medical resources and high risks of infection, we should strive to “manage epidemics and anti-cancer at the same time.” Here, based on our own experience, we summarize how to deal with the rapidly growing needs of cancer patients in the post-peak period of COVID-19 in this Opinion.