Testing This N.Y. Times article describes difficulties in obtaining timely and nearby testing for children and the implications for public health mitigation efforts. In many instances, existing free testing sites set a minimum age that does not include many school-age
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Resource Allocation This ethics roundtable by Baumrucker et al. discusses the difficult case of critical care resource priority in the context of COVID-19, presenting a case in which an otherwise healthy 59-year-old and a 17-year-old both require ventilator care with
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Racial and Ethnic Disparities This article by Figueroa et al. analyses racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 rates in Massachusetts, which has had one of the highest incidence rates in the U.S. The disparate impact of the pandemic on Black
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Resource Allocation This article by Webb, Shah & Fernandez Lynch addresses ethical issues in allocating access to unproven but promising drugs that become available through Pre-Approval Access (PAA) programs and Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). PAA programs allow access to unapproved
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Supplies As reported in this Axios article, FDA released a list of medical supplies that remain in short supply. FDA is required to provide this list under provisions of the CARES Act passed in March 2020, based on mandatory reports
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Health Care Workers This article by Feinstein et al. addresses the potential for a mental health crisis among frontline health care workers as a result of the pandemic and surrounding circumstances, such as lack of PPE, shortages of critical care
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RESOURCE ALLOCATION This Health Affairs article by Kanter, Segal & Groeneveld (also covered in this STAT article) discusses the role of income disparities in access to ICU beds as related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors examine disparities by median
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Staffing This new Rapid Expert Consultation document from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering & Medicine focuses on health care staffing for COVID-19 and provides guidance for decision-making in situations where staffing is not optimal and additional qualified, expert personnel
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Facilities and Staff This Viewpoint by Guddati argues that facility policies that fail to provide adequate PPE for health care professionals, including those that prohibit using scarce PPE (specifically masks) when seeing patients not confirmed to be positive for COVID-19,
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Facilities & Providers In response to case surge in Arizona, hospitals in the state requested waiver of several legal requirements that generally protect patients against abuse, neglect, and discrimination, as detailed in this Arizona Republic article. The state health department
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