Clinical oncology : a journal of the Royal College of Radiologists
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Clin Oncol (R Coll Radiol) · Jul 2020
EditorialManaging the COVID-19 Pandemic as a National Radiation Oncology Centre in Singapore.
COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was declared a global pandemic in March 2020. It has impacted the world medically, financially, politically and socially, with countries such as China and Italy adopting a full lockdown of their cities to mitigate the transmission. The current mortality rate is 5.4%, with 1 056 159 people infected worldwide. ⋯ Cancer patients, who are often immunocompromised, are at risk of contracting the disease and becoming seriously ill. At the same time, delaying treatment such as radiotherapy in cancer patients can be detrimental. Here, we describe our experience as a large radiation oncology department in Singapore, including the challenges we encountered and how we managed our patient flow.