Well, we have COVID and my main symptom is anger. I’m angry that I can basically pack up my kids, throw our masks in the garbage and head off for a fun day at Costco or the movies. I’m angry that I have COVID during the few days off I was supposed to recover from my last stretch of ICU service, during which I looked after an increasing number of new COVID admissions representing the latest surge that’s starting.

The reason nobody wants to talk about triage is because it opens up the can of worms conversation. If I have 10 people who need a bed and resources to care for 2 of them, it is politically much more comfortable to give inadequate care to all 10. By giving everyone worse outcomes overall, “everyone” gets the same “package”

If your chance of a good recovery and excellent functional status would have been X% in normal times, it will be reduced to Y% now.

the bar shifts for everyone. the entire population gets sicker

Society doesn’t want to talk about triage. But we are triaging. We triage resources. Leaving the debate about how to decide if an individual gets treatment or not, what we are doing now is only crisis management, which begets more crisis. Since the influenza before COVID, our only surge plan has been to cancel surgeries/shuffle resources so that the most acutely Ill people get the care they need

Each time this happens, we shuffle resources that are fewer and more tired and often less experienced or less trained