Decisions, Decisions
Although I will most likely go down in winter forum history as the girl that would readily kill her “65 year old retired grandpa over a ‘more useful and potentially productive’ 5 year old,” the entire discussion on rationing and dictating who receives vaccines (and in a sense who determines who lives or dies) was very eye-opening. Doctors have long been said to have “God complexes” and criticized for this mentality. However today when you think of it, we were indeed playing the role of a higher power who had to dictate who was worthy of living. It was easy to laugh some of the comments off at the forum in order to take some of the weight from our shoulders. However, when we went into our breakout sessions we soon learned that being put into this decision is certainly stressful and I left the room with my head spinning, doubting whether I knew what criteria for selection was most important to me personally. The easy way out, would just be to give up and pray and hope for the best. However I think it is crucial, with each day new strains of viruses and spread being aided through the growth of infrastructure and commerce, the chances of another pandemic breaking out is likely. I also think it is important to put these measures in place because (just as Dr. Rosoff touched on a little through questions) in the end the people who end up having to make tough decisions (like in the case of Hurricane Katrina as he also spoke about) may be held accountable when the “wrong people are picked” or when socially unacceptable or pleasant decisions are made. Although it doesn’t sound pleasant, but I feel in the case of a pandemic there must be an acceptable loss of life and that we must set up a better system of who receives vaccines. If not, everyone loses in the end. Just some of the many thoughts that were swirling around up in my head.
When we first broke up into smaller groups, all we could talk about was how every rationing strategy was undesirable because it meant that large sections of the population would be excluded from getting the vaccine. I found it incredibly difficult to wrap my mind around the concept that someone had to die, and that I was basically deciding who that would be. Modern technological advances truly are a blessing and a curse. Without vaccine technology, we wouldn’t have to make the impossible choice of who lives and who dies, but we also wouldn’t be capable of preventing (almost certainly) the deaths of key people who could maintain social stability during the pandemic. Without all the medical advances that have made it possible for severely immunocompromised individuals to live and lead nearly normal lives, we wouldn’t have to decide if they should be the first or last to get the vaccine. Technology has afforded us choices that no other species on this earth has, but I don’t believe that any person will ever be completely comfortable making those choices, to an extent, “playing God”.
During debriefing, I realized the tiers my team set up placed my eight year old sister as the only person in my family who most likely wouldn’t get a vaccine. In our scenario there’s still a 3/5 chance she will survive. (Maybe we would just quarantine her inside our own house in hopes that she will survive with us.) I hadn’t thought about her, because we were thinking on the population level. When people make these decisions, they have to be willing to put family aside, because other families will also be suffering. It’s really difficult to picture the aftermath. Through our current decisions we’re also choosing what we might have to face in the future.
It makes me contemplate about why are we making these particular policies. In the winter forum, I feel an urge to make decisions, because it’s a real life issue that demands to be addressed. If a problem is presented, we want to try and solve it. It is not easy and there is no perfect solution. Yet, as a common citizen, receiving a vaccine or leaving it to chance becomes something I simply accept because the decision is made for me. To discuss who will receive a vaccine or not makes you question what or who we value most and why.
I like how winter forum challenges us to think from different perspectives.