Vaccinated patients earned the right to priority hospital admissions

Echo opinion letter published in The Washington Post:

The Jan. 3, 2022, Washington Post Metro article “Hogan: ‘Worst’ to come on covid” noted that hospitals have insufficient capacity to deal with the coronavirus surge.

Currently, there are few or no hospital beds available in Montgomery County, so patients are being treated in the emergency room halls.

Hospitals should be required to be transparent about the criteria they use to decide who gets a hospital bed. One of those criteria should be that vaccinated patients waiting for a bed (whether for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, or other related medical conditions) should get higher priority for a bed than an unvaccinated patient ill with COVID. 

As noted in the Jan. 3, editorial “Payouts for vaccine refusers,” unvaccinated patients must face the consequences of their decision. One of those consequences should be lower priority to get hospital beds.

From Douglas Soffer, Arlington, Virginia