Ethics

Health Inequities This article by Clay et al. adds further data and analysis exploring the relationship between COVID-19 severity and other factors, including race and ethnicity, health care access and affordability, and existing comorbid conditions. Several studies have indicated a Read More

Crisis Standards of Care This new report from the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reports findings from a series of forums in which clinicians from hospitals across New York City discussed their experiences Read More

This week’s review will be more roundup than blog post, pointing you to new studies, analysis, and essays from the past week: Vaccines Third Vaccine Approved – FDA issues Emergency Use Authorization for Johnson & Johnson vaccine – All of Read More

Nursing Homes This article by Gorges & Konetzka uses data from over 13,000 US nursing homes to determine whether case mix, facility characteristics, and community spread were associated with racial differences in COVID-19-associated deaths among residents. The study found that Read More

Vaccination Allocation & Equity This will be another big week for vaccine policy, law, and ethics. Johnson and Johnson’s Emergency Use Authorization application for its one-dose vaccine will be reviewed this week by the Food and Drug Administration (they also Read More

Vaccine Rollout – New Vaccine, Outreach Efforts Addressing Equity Johnson & Johnson submitted an Emergency Use Authorization application for its one-dose COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday. The application, which will be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration at its February Read More

Health Care Workers This study by Yang et al. assesses whether health care workers (HCWs) are at risk of worse outcomes associated with COVID-19 (mechanical ventilation or death) compared to patients who are not HCWs. The target of the study Read More

Resource Allocation This preprint article by Sarkar et al. assesses the performance of three severity scoring systems (SOFA, OASIS, and APACHE IVa) across race/ethnicity. While developed for other purposes, such scoring systems (in particular SOFA) are also used in many Read More

Equity and the Vaccine Rollout “We don’t want equity and speed at odds with one another,” said California’s Health Secretary Mark Ghaly at a recent news conference. As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout approaches its third month, more information is now Read More

Supplies The new administration under President Biden has issued a large number of executive orders in its first days, including several related to pandemic response. Among other actions are orders: Invoking various emergency authorities, including the Defense Production Act, to Read More