When the Covid‐19 pandemic reached the United States in spring 2020, many states and hospitals announced crisis standards of care plans that used age as a categorical exclusion criterion. Such age choosing was quickly flagged as discriminatory, and so some states and hospitals shifted to embedding age as a tiebreaker deeper in their plans. Different rationales were given for using age as a tiebreaker: that younger patients were more likely to survive than older patients, that saving younger patients would save (...) more life years, and that younger patients deserved a chance to live through life's stages. We provide a critical analysis of these three rationales, noting the differences between them, and then questioning the ethical and legal justifications for such age choosing. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 109-111.