Ethics

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 Read More

Nationwide Eviction Freeze The CDC issued an Emergency Action this week implementing a nationwide temporary freeze on evictions. The freeze runs from September 4 through December 31, 2020. Here is a link to the CDC’s Declaration Form which must be filled Read More

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 Read More

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 Read More

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 Read More

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 Read More

Takeaways of this article: The media has misrepresented the findings and efficacy of medications experimentally used to treat COVID-19. Researchers and the media must temper the message for the public by contextualizing results. Policymakers, patients, clinicians, and the public are Read More

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 Read More

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, Read More

This article is a companion article to the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) position statement, “Resource Allocation Strategies and Age-Related Considerations in the COVID-19 Era and Beyond”. It describes the legal and ethical background for the position statement and seeks to Read More