Vol. 41 No. 1 (2021)
Articles

Allocating and Reallocating: Two Different Criteria to Distribute Scarce Therapeutic Resources

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  • Federico Germán Abal
Federico Germán Abal
IIF-SADAF-CONICET
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36446/af.2021.355

Published 2021-05-01

Keywords

  • COVID-19,
  • Pandemia,
  • Triaje,
  • Escasez,
  • Asignación,
  • Reasignación,
  • Recursos
    • ...More
    Less
  • COVID-19,
  • Pandemic,
  • Triage,
  • Shortage,
  • Allocation,
  • Reallocation
    • ...More
    Less
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, several authors have analyzed what is the appropriate moral criterion to distribute scarce therapeutic resources. In doing so they assume that there is no relevant normative difference between the distribution of unallocated therapeutic resources and the distribution of therapeutic resources that have already been allocated. Consequently, they affirm that the moral criterion to be applied in both decisions is the same. In the present work, I argue that there is a relevant normative difference between these decisions and that the moral criterion to be applied in both decisions must be different.

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