A Modest Proposal
By: Andrew Alexander
Tags: Covid 19, Medicine, Health, Vaccines, Hospital

The unfortunate fate of thousands in the US right now

Now, I want to preface this article with a statement that I don’t want anyone to die or suffer. I want everyone (including anti-vaxxers!) to live a long and healthy life.

But we have a problem.

Right now, the Delta variant is raging across the United States and several states are seeing hospitals that are overflowing with COVID patients. These states have very few ICU beds left (in some cases, single digits). This, at a time when getting a COVID vaccination in the US is as easy as popping into a local pharmacy for 20 minutes.

The ICU bed problem doesn’t just hurt other COVID patients, it hurts anyone who needs intensive care. Have a major car accident? This affects you. Have a heart attack? This affects you.

Now, I’m no doctor, but I understand the concept of triaging. For those who don’t know, triaging is used when there’s scarce medical resources, in an attempt to decide who among us should get those resources.

My proposal is simple.

People who do not want to get the COVID vaccine should be free to not do so -I believe in bodily autonomy. But the vaccines are safe — we can see that in the hundreds of millions vaccinated without any major issues. And the lack of getting vaccinated is a direct contributor to hospital overcrowding, with > 95% of the people in ICUs with COVID being unvaccinated. So how do we deal with this overcrowding due to non-vaccinators?

Simple. We put people who refuse the COVID vaccines, and who present with COVID on the bottom of the triage lists. Now what does this mean in practical terms?

Well, first, it would free up ICU beds for other severe maladies that there might otherwise not be room for. Let’s say you have a heart attack, and at the same time a non-vaccinator presents with severe COVID symptoms and there is only one ICU bed left.

Under this modest proposal, the person that presented with the heart attack (regardless of vaccination status, mind you) would get the hospital bed over the non-vaccinator with severe COVID symptoms. Now, everything that could be done, still would be done for the non-vaccinator. Again, this isn’t to punish anti-vaxxers — I want them to live long and healthy lives if at all possible. This is an attempt to deal with scarce medical resources. And the reality of the situation is that at this point, anti-vaxxers are making this pandemic worse, and using up virtually all of the available hospital resources. That is untenable.

If anti-vaccinators are going to continue to make the pandemic worse, and downplay the risks of COVID, then I think the risks of that decision should fall on them, not onto other people needing hospitalization.

Again, this wouldn’t be a complete denial of resources to anti-vaccinators — I don’t want that. Just a triage preference when all resources are used up, there’s no space left, and the individual presents with COVID.

The vaccinated, medically, religiously or otherwise exempt people, and anyone under 18 would not be subject to this triage rule.

Considering the scarcity of certain medical resources (namely ICU beds) right now, I can’t think of a more ethical way to provision them. This is a tragedy we’re experiencing now, but at this point, it is mostly a tragedy of our making.

Hopefully we wisen up, and solve that.