ICU beds and ventilators shouldn't be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Health-care workers should get priority. Patients with a better chance of recovery should get access to limited life-saving equipment, over those who are more sick.
These and other guidelines were released Monday by a group of global medical experts and bioethicists, aiming to provide a dispassionate framework for decision-making as some hospitals face a surge of patients with severe infections caused by COVID-19.
The report's departure point is grim: Rationing of life-saving equipment will be necessary in some places, in spite of hospitals' and authorities' best efforts to boost intensive-care units and ventilators. In other areas, rationing of life-saving care is already underway.