If North Texas starts running out of ICU beds, doctors may have to consider coronavirus vaccination status as a factor in who gets priority care—a situation health officials hope to avoid but worry is becoming increasingly likely—with the vaccinated potentially being prioritized for treatment on the assumption that they’re more likely to survive.
Members of the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force held a meeting last week about the worsening Covid crisis in the area, and discussed the possibility that doctors might need to use Covid vaccination status to prioritize care in extreme scenarios.
A spokesman for the task force told Forbes that doctors at the meeting noted unvaccinated Covid patients were suffering worse outcomes, leading to an internal memo being sent to members of the task force—which provides guidance for physicians in the Dallas area—telling doctors they could take vaccination status into account when deciding who to care for, if needed.
Dr. Mark Casanova, the task force’s spokesman, told Forbes that other factors—like pre-existing conditions—would be taken into effect in situations where patients have to be prioritized for care, and unvaccinated status will not be used as an “exclusion criteria.”
But if all things are equal between two patients suffering from Covid-19, the one who is vaccinated would be seen as more likely to survive, Casanova said, meaning they would receive care first.
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