https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-covid-19-hospital-visits/

Maintaining social distance and voluntarily quarantining yourself is part self-interest, part altruism. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, the lives it is claiming are not always, generally speaking, young and healthy ones. People have been told repeatedly that their efforts to stay well or stay well away from others will not only benefit them, but protect the lives of the more vulnerable people around them, like older adults and people with serious, long-term health challenges. For those vulnerable populations, self-isolating is doubly vital.

Trouble is, for many people with preexisting medical conditions, holing up at home isn’t an option. If they’re in the middle of a course of chemotherapy or due for a liver transplant or even just pregnant, doctor’s visits can’t be postponed indefinitely. Instead, their medical needs will draw them straight to where they are most likely to encounter a person suffering from Covid-19: the hospital. Understandably, people are worried, especially now that hospitals are looking at canceling nonemergency surgeries and setting up makeshift respiratory units. Like much of the internet, Facebook groups and subreddits for people with serious medical conditions are buzzing with coronavirus concerns, but with an urgency that is considerably more concrete and specific.