Providing care for the 99.9% during the COVID-19 pandemic: How ethics, equity, epidemiology, and cost per QALY inform healthcare policy

Abstract

Managing healthcare in the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) era should be guided by ethics, epidemiology, equity, and economics, not emotion. Ethical healthcare policies ensure equitable access to care for patients regardless of whether they have COVID-19 or another disease. Because healthcare resources are limited, a cost per Quality Life Year (QALY) approach to COVID-19 policy should also be considered. Policies that focus solely on mitigating COVID-19 are likely to be ethically or financially unsustainable. A cost/QALY approach could target resources to optimally improve QALYs. For example, most COVID-19 deaths occur in long-term care facilities, and this problem is likely better addressed by a focused long-term care reform than by a society-wide non-pharmacological intervention. Likewise, ramping up elective, non-COVID-19 care in low prevalence regions while expanding testing and case tracking in hot spots could reduce excess mortality from non-COVID-19 diseases and decrease adverse financial impacts while controlling the epidemic. Globally, only ∼0.1% of people have had a COVID-19 infection. Thus, ethical healthcare policy must address the needs of the 99.9%.