From the very beginning Covid-19 has been known as a virus that attacks the respiratory system. There has been much reporting that there can be permanent damage to the lungs of individuals that have contracted Covid-19. A question that we need to be asking as an industry is whether or not the combination of Radon and the consequences of Covid-19 put an individual at greater risk of contracting Lung Cancer. We have known for many years that the combination of smoking and Radon is deadly. This is very possibly another example of many thousands of people being at greater risk of getting Lung Cancer because of the combination of having had Covid-19 and Radon. Add into the equation the fact that many people are working from home, children are learning from home, and people, in general, are spending much more time at home. This is a perfect opportunity to dedicate ourselves to increasing awareness and saving as many lives as we can from preventable Radon induced Lung Cancer.
You ask a good question, Daryl. A few thoughts:
- This would be difficult to research, in part because we are only now learning some things about the disease process of COVID-19, and not least because the long latency period for lung cancer means that we would probably not have a clear idea of any actual change in risk for many years. But this is certainly something to keep paying attention to down the road.
- I would prefer to see proposed some physiological/radiological mechanisms by which COVID-19 might promote oncogenesis due to radon and its decay products, but for that I would need to defer to scientists and physicians who are familiar with everything needed to credibly make such hypotheses.