Q&A: Prioritizing Vaccinated Patients
Prioritizing Vaccinated Patients
Question
Hello, honored Rabbi,
Today it was published in the name of Rabbi Sherlo that one should give priority in treatment to a vaccinated patient over a patient who chose not to be vaccinated (while qualifying that his words were not said in a situation of danger to life).
Quite apart from the fact that the factual basis is not at all precise (since we plainly see that vaccinated people also get sick),
I am not talking about those who preach against vaccines in the various media.
Only about the ordinary citizen who is worried about a new vaccine and for now refuses to be vaccinated, or who claims that in the current situation passive omission is preferable.
And here the son asks:
Is there enough irresponsibility in his decision not to vaccinate that this should count as a consideration in whether he receives medical treatment?
After all, according to everyone, a patient who comes to the hospital is in the category of a dangerously ill person, and it is permitted to desecrate the Sabbath for him.
Is there a halakhic basis for such a ruling—that is, should we say, for example, that we would not desecrate the Sabbath for a patient who bears responsibility or blame for his condition?
What is considered in the world of ethics a relevant consideration for defining a patient as guilty for his condition?
Answer
I do not see any problem with that statement. Someone who does not take care of himself should not cast himself upon the public. Just as, in my view, it is preferable to treat someone who does not smoke over someone who smokes and developed lung cancer.
The conclusion is not that we would not desecrate the Sabbath for a patient who is to blame for his condition, but that we would first save a patient who is not to blame. If there is no problem saving him, then we desecrate the Sabbath for him as well (although on logical grounds there would certainly be room to question even that).
Discussion on Answer
In my humble opinion, Rabbi Sherlo said this specifically regarding a time of pandemic, and those who do not vaccinate put themselves and those around them into substantial danger at a time when the resources of doctors and medicine are close to the breaking point. But in situations that are not extreme situations, he would not say this—not regarding smoking [a habit that is very hard to get rid of and not something one simply recoils from], obesity, not doing sports, and the like.
Rabbi Michi is entitled to broaden it, but Rabbi Sherlo, as an ethicist and a member of committees, narrowed the distinction very sharply only to an emergency, a time of pandemic—and not to any other area.
Both sides are taking a risk.
Those who do not vaccinate are taking the risk that maybe they will be infected and become seriously ill. It is indeed a risk, but a small and known one. If the person is healthy, the risk is negligible, like dying in a car accident.
Those who vaccinate are taking a much more problematic risk, assuming they are injecting into themselves the genetic code of the coronavirus and then they will produce a vaccine, so indeed they will be somewhat more immunized—but if someone replaces the code with some other malicious code, they will become sick with all sorts of strange diseases.
That is, in terms of expected outcome, the vaccinated are taking a much greater risk in the sense that the variance there is greater because of the uncertainty regarding the nature of the genetic code injected into the body, which can change from vaccine to vaccine, and even within the vaccine itself there can be different codes. And nobody checks.
And what about someone who did not exercise and got diabetes?