Cancer patients ‘worried’ over lifting of Covid-19 restrictions
ANXIETIES remain for many clinically vulnerable people even as coronavirus restrictions are lifted, a cancer charity has said.
The warning comes as the UK today marks the second anniversary of the first two cases of Covid-19 which were confirmed after a Chinese student from the University of York was visited in the city by his mother, who had travelled from China where the disease originated.
Macmillan’s head of partnerships for the North, Heather McLean, said: “Measures like mask wearing have helped protect and reassure people with cancer, they’ve enabled people to feel safer in their everyday lives.
“Now these measures are going, it leaves a lot of people very worried.”
Yesterday 62,399 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in the UK with a further 85 deaths, bringing the total to 155,698. While the vaccine programme continues to be rolled out, with the total number of third doses or booster jabs rising to 37.2 million, for some reassurance is still a distant hope.
Matt Lackford, 34 from Halifax, is living with a rare cancer called chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
A contemporary dancer, he was diagnosed with the treatable but incurable condition early in 2019, and when the pandemic hit he began shielding even before official guidance was issued.
“It’s been an absolute rollercoaster since then. As time has gone on, people are excited to get back to normal. Our lives don’t really fit into the definition of ‘normal’,” Mr Lackford said.
Macmillan has been a “lifeline”, he added, with support at Calderdale Royal Hospital and a clinical nurse specialist he could speak to. Mr Lackford now volunteers himself at the NHS trust as a patient representative.
But he still wears a mask and uses sanitiser, and limits his time around people. That “ripples” to family and friends, he said, who limit their lives for him.
His hope is that the depth of compassion shown during the pandemic will continue. “I hope that remains. If you look at me, you wouldn’t know I have cancer. There are vulnerable people out there,” he said.