“Covid and cancer are a menacing mix — for everyone, but especially for people of color from low-income communities. African Americans and Hispanics are about twice as likely as White people to die of covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black cancer patients are at particularly high risk for complications and hospitalizations. Even before the pandemic, Black people had lower survival rates for many cancers compared with White people. Now, with the pandemic grinding on, many doctors fear those inequalities will worsen.

‘Covid put cancer and health-care disparities on steroids,’ Patel said as he walked through his clinic, offering patients words of encouragement. ‘I have never seen this many people presenting at Stage 3 and 4.’ Even for people like Caldwell, who responded to the treatment, he said, ‘Stage 4 cancer is like sitting on a volcano’ because it frequently recurs.”