Yup if folks are vaxxed and tried to do the right thing they should get priority, and yup - save beds for non-Covid emergencies. If they get used up by non-Covid things, so be it and ration however when that bus crashes, but they shouldn’t all be available for those who chose not to get vaxxed. They made their choice, they can live or die with it if there’s not enough room.
It’s not all smokers et al who have heart attacks or other real health issues.
I read the article and recognized some of my friends in what they describe. They take a lot of supplements and shun big pharma. There are parts of that I understand and agree with. I don’t take a lot of medications and I wish I could eat healthy. The problem is, that you can’t health your way out of everything.
At least my friends don’t encourage others not to get vaccinated.
Supporting that type of discrimination is concerning. Many people that end up in hospitals in an ICU are there because they made poor behavior or lifestyle choices. Maybe they didn’t smoke, but did they exercise regularly, was their diet above reproach? If you’re going to start prioritizing people based on that type of criteria it’s a slippery slope. If you’re a smoker, if you drink too much, if you eat too much sugar, fried or fatty foods, if you’re over a certain BMI, if you did or do illegal drugs; you can’t just stop at the Covid vaccine because there’s an extensive laundry list of poor choices we could utilize in prioritizing healthcare resources.
Better yet, we could outlaw alcohol, sugar, butter, candy, chocolate, French fries and so forth because they contribute to poor health outcomes and could cause an ICU bed to be filled by someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Also, for the most part the public pays the health insurance premiums and Medicare taxes or premiums that funds our healthcare system. Perhaps those without insurance should also be denied care as well. If you don’t contribute to the system why should you be allowed to reap the benefits.
In cases where ICUs are full, they’re already rationing care. Covid vaxxes should be one of those reasons to ration. Smoking, et al, can be another. Covid anti-vaxxers shouldn’t get priority when they made the choice to be in that group. Right now it seems all others get rationed while the anti-vaxxers don’t.
They’re not prioritized, they’re already in the ICU. Just like a car crash patient, a heart attack patient or a drug overdose patient might be in there before the lung cancer patient is due for his surgery. The question is how do you ration if people are already in the ICU? That seems to be the issue in these articles where elective surgeries are postponed. I agree with the idea that a certain percentage of ICU beds could be reserved for non-COVID cases but in reality hospitals would incur huge liabilities if they have a critical covid patient, a non-COVID ICU bed is available, they refuse to allow the patient access and the patient dies.
This is not a slippery-slope matter. This is a global health emergency involving a dangerous, highly transmissible virus. If at this point you’re not vaccinated, and you are an adult who has not got a sound medical reason for avoiding vaccination, you are either the captive of someone who’s been holding you prisoner and not allowing you to get vaccinated (but has decided to take you to the hospital) or you have made a conscious decision to put yourself and a chain of other people, including HCWs and their families, at risk of death by drowning in own jellied lungs and at risk of long-term disability. It’s antisocial behavior that should not be compounded with the use of scarce ICU beds for people who are deliberately creating that scarcity. You’re arguing to make absolutely certain that the plane hijackers be given the best possible shot at getting parachutes, even when there aren’t enough to go around.
The number of false equivalencies surrounding covid is both staggering and deeply annoying. What’s even more annoying is the repetition of them by people who haven’t taken the time to think them through and ask “Is this actually reasonable? Is this true?”
Incidentally: it is now 1.5 years – minus a brief summer intermission – since I have led anything resembling a normal life, which I would be doing if I lived in a state where the government took covid seriously instead of continuing to play at death cult. I would be going to restaurants where people showed vaccination cards. I’d be going to public events full of vaccinated, masked people, instead of watching them happen other places online. I’d be back in my office part time, dropping in on people instead of continuing to commute online from across town, which might as well be Mars. And I would not have the feeling of hopelessness that comes of knowing that your kid’s in a dangerous environment, protected as well as she can be given the unnecessarily dangerous environment she lives in, because it’s that or no college at all. I would not be scrambling to make sure I’ve got remote backup employment in case of RTW demands instead of having a rest after nearly two decades of singlehandedly raising a child and making sure she’s had all she needed. Working around the freaking clock for years.
And I see no end in sight. I spent part of last night wondering where my kid’s going to live this summer while she works to save money. Ordinarily, the answer would be obvious: here. But now it looks like I’ll be choosing between time with my kid, not to mention the savings from having her live here, and my longterm health. I think it likely that I will pay most of what she makes at her job to allow her to sublet somewhere.
And that’s just us. There are too many other people, other stories, to begin to approach discussion.
I know exactly whose fault this is. The scientists have done miraculous work, and the engineers are unsung heroes. The healthcare system is doing its level best. Mayors, governors have done the right thing. There’s an army of people in less happy areas struggling to quietly keep things somewhat safer for little kids and other vulnerable people, having to sneak around and break rules to do it. All it would take to put this thing down is a few ten million highly irresponsible people who can’t let go of a good tabloid story actually behaving responsibly and getting vaccinated. People who refuse to admit that putting on a mask is not equivalent to knuckling under to tyranny, despite the patent silliness of what they’re saying.
No, I’m really not in the mood to fret over whether we’re taking the best possible care to serve the deliberately unvaccinated with all this country’s hospitals have to offer. It’s enough now. It’s been enough all along.
Excellent post. It still blows me away that my aunt refused (and still refuses) to get vaccinated but ran to the the hospital the second she had serious symptoms from COVID, and then again a couple of days later when she continued to deteriorate. She didn’t trust the medical system to prevent her from getting ill but then insisted they help her when through her own stubbornness she got the virus. I have zero sympathy for her. She’s a college educated woman.
How do people prove they’ve had the vaccine? Are all states keeping track? Where do those with religious and medical exemptions fall in the queue? Are they all at the back of the line because they’re unvaccinated? Who makes that call? Is it by state? By hospital system?
Who bears the liability if a vaccinated person dies in the hospital because treatment is delayed while the hospital verifies their status? Since families are often not allowed in the hospital anymore due to Covid, who advocates for the vaccinated patients who are categorized as unvaccinated due to an error or because they’re too ill to produce the paperwork? Who bears the liability if someone who fakes a card jumps ahead of a truly vaccinated person and the vaccinated person dies? The losers here will be the poorly educated, low income people who don’t have access to regular healthcare or a personal physician who will advocate for them.
@austinmshauri, I think you are pointing out that there is are problems with what I infer to be @bennty’s suggestion that hospitals give preference to the vaccinated. True. But there are also problems with the status quo in which we let folks who chose to be unvaccinated clog up the medical system and put at risk others who have made the choice to be vaccinated.
Those insisting on freedom of choice need to bear the consequences of that choice. At the moment, the rest of us are bearing significant parts in the terms of deaths of others, the risks/costs of having to defer surgeries or get lower priority in hospitals, the no doubt higher health insurance premiums we will all pay, etc.
I’m sure I don’t have the answer but in my experience, we ought to be comparing the proposed change (both pros and cons) with the status quo (both pros and cons). I’d say that at the moment, the health care system is already biased against “poorly educated, low income people who don’t have access to regular healthcare or a personal physician who will advocate for them.” The question is whether there is a net gain from letting people who made a choice bear more of the consequences of their choices taking into account a perhaps increased cost to the population you described.
Interesting conversation.
So, if we’re all for limiting access to individuals based on vaccine status do we go a step further and prioritize those that have been the most cautious? Do we rank priority highest for those that have received a booster in addition to their other doses? Do those that have only received their first dose fall further down the list? Do we implement a social risk score? Those that are fully vaxxed and totally isolating move to the top of the list. Those that are vaxxed but travel, or eat in restaurants get second tier status, etc. I mean the reality is some are doing their part much more to stop this than others right? Why would we stop at just looking if someone were vaccinated? There are other choices that people make that are riskier or safer.
No, restrictions apply to people who have not gotten fully vaccinated. If it’s later decided that boosters are essential, we add that to the requirement. That’s it. That is basic, responsible behavior. It’s not rocket science.
So, who gets to make that decision though?
What if others have went a step further and gotten a booster and also are isolating? What if they decide that those that are being more risky are not helping the hospitals, society? Don’t they have a higher moral ground to speak from?
It’s easy to call out others for their behaviors because you feel perhaps superior.
There are so few of these that statistically it’s pretty negligible.
If a health care system is nearing 100% capacity (this includes the rooms that have been transformed to increase capacity), then they reserve X number for non-Covid emergencies. Hospitals know the average number of cases they get in. They aren’t making wild guesses. Where my guy works they have had group sessions where doctors advocate for who needs surgeries, etc. Rationing is already happening.
The only thing that needs to happen is places decide those who have chosen not to be vaccinated (without a medical reason) don’t get to take up all the beds. It can be first come, first served for the beds allocated to them. Other lives count too.
If the bus/plane crash, mass shooting, or sudden cardiac surge happens, then they’ll have to make more on the spot decisions, but for everyday life, they have a good idea of what will be needed for non-Covid cases.
What’s that saying about $200 ($0 paid by the patient) of prevention versus $21,000 ($4,000? paid by the patient) of cure?
Again, I don’t feel superior and it’s simple. You are fully vaccinated, you show your card and you move to to the front of the line. “What if” “what if” “what if” are just smoke screens. It’s basic human responsibility and kindness to take care of your business and protect others. I can’t believe we even have to have this discussion. Our ancestors must be rolling over in their graves. And in 20 years, when school kids are studying this period in time, they will say, “Mom, why did you let this happen? How were those people allowed to act so irresponsibly?” 
That is why I speak up and will continue to do so.
I don’t think it’s as easy to place blame for our current situation as some people think. Governors and mayors did the right thing? Did they? In March 2020 people were already dying from Covid. The federal government recommended prohibiting gatherings of more than 10 people, yet spring break went on as usual in FL. Those students partied in close contact then returned to (primarily) the East Coast and Midwest taking their germs with them.
In late March the President was still comparing covid to the flu. In April he suggested exploring the possibility that injecting disinfectants might kill Covid. In my opinion, the door inviting charlatans in was flung wide open on a national level.
In Sept. 2020, months before a vaccine was available, the FL governor reopened restaurants at full capacity and refused to allow communities to fine people for not wearing masks. The CDC was inconsistent, particularly with regards to the usefulness of masks, so it isn’t surprising to me that there are people who are confused, afraid, and unsure who to believe. The most vocal are the conspiracy theorists, but those I read about most often have been confused by the mixed messages.
I blame our current situation on the leaders who refused to do their jobs and actually lead. The public (vaccinated and unvaccinated alike) are just casualties of the poor choices made by the people who were elected to serve them.
There are definitely some leaders who will go down in history, and probably not in as good a view as they think.
Like every other human, leaders run the gamut with Covid.
Speaking of leaders and bad messaging. There are plenty of clips of leaders at the end of summer, beginning of fall 2020 saying they didn’t really trust the vaccine because of how fast it was being developed and who might be involved in pushing to get it out quickly. That messaging surely didn’t help regarding vaccine reluctance.
A note from a 45-year-old friend in Michigan who has been cancer-free for a year or so after being diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer:
“Because of all of the careless people around me, I’m totally paranoid to use kitchen knives or give myself a running injury or get into a car accident. Our hospitals are packed full of Covid patients. So for non-Covid cases, it’s nearly like having no hospitals at all, too. A friend with metastatic breast cancer needs a biopsy to guide further treatment, as the chemo she’d been on has stopped working – but that’s been postponed. I’d like to have my infusion port removed…I regret not doing that when my oncologist first gave me the go-ahead. I was thinking it made more sense to do it in the Winter, when I won’t have to take any time off from race training to let it heal. These [people] have us all held hostage.”