Would It Be Fair to Treat Vaccinated Covid Patients First?

August 23, 2021

(Wired) – It’s no accident that people describe something that’s calculated, cold, and unemotional as “clinical.” Taking care of people’s health isn’t emotion-free by any means, but the clinic is where physicians and nurses have to make life-and-death decisions under time pressure—including which patients go first, and what kind of care they get. When resources like, say, ventilators, intensive care beds, oxygen, staff, and time are scarce, that decisionmaking is called triage. And last week, The Dallas Morning News reported that some Texas hospitals were considering a massive change to how they do it. The question in play: Would it make sense to take into account the vaccination status of their Covid patients? With ICUs filling up with severely ill Covid-19 patients and a shortage of beds and nurses, should clinicians (all other things being equal) care for vaccinated people before—or differently than—unvaccinated ones? (Read Full Article)