Doctor Suggests Unvaxxed Patients Should Be Moved Toward the Back of the Treatment Line: ‘We Need to Talk About This’

MSNBC medical analyst Dr. Vin Gupta told Joy Reid Wednesday it’s time to begin looking at the bioethics of placing a lower priority on unvaccinated Covid patients with regard to treatment.

Gupta, a pulmonologist, joined The ReidOut for a discussion with the host and fellow guest Dr. Brook Watts about the country’s expected caseload as the Omicron variant spreads. Reid, when introducing the physician, said she has run out of patience with vaccine hesitant Americans.

“I’m sort of reaching my kind of peak fatigue, mental fatigue level, and I’m not even dealing with what the doctor and what you guys are dealing with in real life,” said the MSNBC host. “But it’s like, I know just off the top of my head, at least a half dozen people who have gotten Covid, who are vaccinated, but who got it in settings where they were around mixed groups or were with people who were not necessarily vaccinated.”

Reid said that she had seen models which are projecting 140 million new Covid cases over the next two months, and asked Gupta what he thinks should be done.

“We have to move away from this paradigm of even thinking about caseloads day over day,” Gupta said. “Because it’s overwhelming. It’s psychologically depressing, it’s discouraging.”

The doctor said he believes that private sector pressure might help force people to get vaccinated, but if more people do not lift up their sleeves, it is time to assess whether those people should be shuffled to the back of the line at struggling hospitals.

“This is where it’s controversial, but we need to talk about this, the bioethics of it broadly because this is not the last respiratory pandemic we’re going to face,” Gupta said. “What do we do with somebody who is unvaccinated who is taking advanced ICU therapies from somebody who is vaccinated in the hospital? How do we rank order that priority? We do it for organs, kidneys, livers, lungs. We say, ‘Did you smoke, did you drink recently?’ If you did, you’re lower on the list, even if you need it. We need to start thinking of that model.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.