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. 2024 Jul;24(7):66-79.
doi: 10.1080/15265161.2023.2201188. Epub 2023 Apr 27.

Rationing, Responsibility, and Vaccination during COVID-19: A Conceptual Map

Jin K Park  1   2 , Ben Davies  2
Affiliations

Rationing, Responsibility, and Vaccination during COVID-19: A Conceptual Map

Jin K Park et al. Am J Bioeth. 2024 Jul.

Abstract

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of scarce healthcare resources consistently presented significant moral and practical challenges. While the importance of vaccines as a key pharmaceutical intervention to stem pandemic scarcity was widely publicized, a sizable proportion of the population chose not to vaccinate. In response, some have defended the use of vaccination status as a criterion for the allocation of scarce medical resources. In this paper, we critically interpret this burgeoning literature, and describe a framework for thinking about vaccine-sensitive resource allocation using the values of responsibility, reciprocity, and justice. Although our aim here is not to defend a single view of vaccine-sensitive resource allocation, we believe that attending critically with the diversity of arguments in favor (and against) vaccine-sensitivity reveals a number of questions that a vaccine-sensitive approach to allocation should answer in future pandemics.

Keywords: COVID-19; pandemics; public health; rationing/resource allocation; reciprocity; responsibility for health.

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