Law

This essay from Joseph J. Fins, one of the authors of New York’s 2015 guidelines on ventilator allocation during a public health emergency, contends that the Task Force’s guidelines should not be interpreted to authorize the commandeering of ventilators used Read More

This article reports on new guidelines from Massachusetts health officials for potential rationing of ventilators in the event COVID-19 case surge overwhelms available supply. According to the article, the guidance uses an 8-point scoring system based on a patient’s likelihood Read More

This article reports on the potential that ventilators may be reallocated from long-term care facilities to hospitals to respond to resource scarcity due to COVID-19 case surge, including the controversial possibility of disconnecting ventilators currently in use by long-term ventilator-dependent Read More

This draft legal analysis addresses whether existing protocols for rationing scarce resources comply with moral principles and with anti-discrimination laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and concludes that existing approaches adopting a utilitarian approach will have the effect Read More

This article discusses churches that held live Palm Sunday gatherings either in direct defiance of, or skirting, local stay at home orders. At one Los Angeles-area church, “congregants lined up 6 feet apart on Palm Sunday, waiting to take communion….. Read More

According to this article U.K. health officials have decided not to release triage criteria for allocating scarce resources in response to COVID-19, even though the guidance had already been drafted and other pandemic response guidelines that include rationing scarce resources Read More

This article describes efforts by the Trump administration to use the Defense Production Act to compel N95 respirator manufacturer 3M to increase importation to the US of respirators the company manufacturers overseas and allegedly to stop exporting US-made respirators to Read More

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb issued Executive Order 20-18 extending and clarifying the state stay-at-home order, including establishing an enforcement team for noncompliance. The Hastings Center has offered an expert-crafted guidance document for journalists, policymakers, and educators discussing the ethics of Read More

This article discusses how police cited a church in Northwest Indiana for violating the state stay-at-home order after more than 30 people attended Sunday morning services. The church attempted to claim that they were offering an “essential” service. Indiana’s stay-at-home Read More

This article offers a roadmap to improving coordination between the states and federal COVID-19 response. Under the U.S. Constitutional structure, public health governance largely occurs at the state and local, rather than the federal, level, resulting in a “patchwork response Read More