More On COVID

by Stephen Schleicher, MD

A physician colleague emailed me an article written for Project Syndicate. According to Wikipedia, this non-profit media organization publishes commentary and analysis on a variety of global topics. The article I read was written by Peter Singer, a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

The article’s premise: “When both a vaccinated and an unvaccinated patient with COVID-19 need the last available bed in a hospital’s intensive care unit, the vaccinated patient should get it. Those who view vaccination as a “personal choice” need to bear personal responsibility for choosing to place others’ lives at risk.” I agree.

The author speaks of a rural Iowa patient who badly needed an operation. His neighborhood hospital tried in vain to transport him to a larger hospital where this surgery could be performed. Unfortunately, due to an upsurge in Covid cases with almost all hospitalized patients unvaccinated, thesurgery could not be performed in time and the patient died. He quotes the patient’s daughter: “The thing that bothers me the most is people’s selfish decision not to get vaccinated and the failure to see how this affects a greater group of people. That’s the part that’s really difficult to swallow.”

In some hospitals up to 98% of admitted Covid patients are unvaccinated. Sure, vaccination may not prevent you from acquiring the Omicron strain, but it could very well keep you out of the hospital so a patient with a non-Covid emergency can receive adequate care. Oh, and this was a recent Standard Speaker headline: “unvaccinated patients overwhelm Pa hospitals”. Hopefully you are not one of them.