Rationing care in COVID-19: if we must do it, can we do better? | Zendy

Kenneth Rockwood | Zendy

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Rationing care in COVID-19: if we must do it, can we do better?

Author(s) -

Kenneth Rockwood

Publication year - 2020

Publication title -

age and ageing

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 2.014

H-Index - 143

eISSN - 1468-2834

pISSN - 0002-0729

DOI - 10.1093/ageing/afaa202

Subject(s) - rationing , covid-19 , medicine , pandemic , scarcity , intensive care medicine , health care rationing , actuarial science , face (sociological concept) , health care , economic growth , disease , economics , virology , pathology , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty) , microeconomics , social science , sociology

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a proposal for frailty to be used as a rationing criterion. This commentary suggests circumstances under which that is defensible: in the face of lack of capacity to treat everyone, and as an alternative to age in stratifying risk. How best to stratify risk is likely to evolve and may include information about illness severity and dynamic measures. Current research must focus on mobilizing better, COVID-19-specific prognostic information, with a goal of best discriminating which lives are most and least likely to be saved should scarcity of resources dictate that not everyone can receive critical care.

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