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Comment by fortran77 | Hacker News Reader

He's not an elected official or front-line worker. He's not a resident of the community that the Georgetown hospital serves. He's obese. Why did the staff responsible for triage decide that he gets priority over someone more essential, or someone not obese with a better chance of survival.

From the article:

> A physician with experience administering the new monoclonal antibodies, who didn’t want to use his name because he’s not authorized by his hospital to speak publicly, said giving them to Giuliani “appears to be an inappropriate use outside the guidelines of the E.U.A. for a very scarce resource.” Very scarce indeed: According to the Department of Health and Human Services, as of Wednesday the entire country had about 77,000 total doses of the Regeneron cocktail and almost 260,000 doses of Eli Lilly’s monoclonal antibody treatment. That’s less than you’d need to treat everyone who’d tested positive in just the previous two days.

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This is answered quite clearly in the article - because he's well connected. Largely that means people with money, but influence doesn't hurt either. He cut the line as a VIP.

Is that ethically wrong? Probably. Is it new? Not even remotely.

> This is answered quite clearly in the article - because he's well connected. Largely that means people with money, but influence doesn't hurt either. He cut the line as a VIP.

> Is that ethically wrong? Probably. Is it new? Not even remotely.

The story here is not that corruption is "new." The story is that there were a total of 108 doses of this treatment allocated to Washington, and one of them went to someone with self-admittedly "very mild symptoms," and had a history of reckless behavior to boot. That rare treatment might have been able to save someone's life, but it instead went to someone who didn't need it and probably didn't deserve it. It's worth noting that this instance corruption happened and who was involved, so maybe someday something can be done about it or this sort of thing more generally.

It's really weird: whenever there's a story like this, people seem to climb over each other for the opportunity to note that corruption wasn't invented yesterday, like they're making some kind of important point.

> and one of them went to someone with self-admittedly "very mild symptoms,"

In fairness, the monoclonal antibodies have been shown to be ineffective when given by the point symptoms are severe. To save any lives, you'll need to give them to people with mild to moderate symptoms but significant risk factors.

e.g. "...Casirivimab and imdevimab are not authorized for patients who are hospitalized due to COVID-19 or require oxygen therapy due to COVID-19. A benefit of casirivimab and imdevimab treatment has not been shown in patients hospitalized due to COVID-19. Monoclonal antibodies, such as casirivimab and imdevimab, may be associated with worse clinical outcomes when administered to hospitalized patients with COVID-19 requiring high flow oxygen or mechanical ventilation...." https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...

Of course, this really sucks, because there's nowhere near enough to give to everyone who's high risk and has early COVID, while there might eventually be enough to give to people with severe COVID.

>> and had a history of reckless behavior to boot

If there were a vaccine for AIDS, who should get it first, the sober person in a monogamous relationship or the IV drug user having unprotected sex?

> If there were a vaccine for AIDS, who should get it first, the sober person in a monogamous relationship or the IV drug user having unprotected sex?

Giuliani didn't get a vaccine, he got treatment for an active infection.

This is more like: you have one dose of an AIDS cure. Do you give it to the IV drug user who has unprotected sex with strangers at weekly orgies, or do you give it to the 10 year old kid who got it through a blood transfusion?

OK so do you give the treatment to the 10 year old kid who has a 0.000% chance of dying or the 76 year old who has a 5% chance of dying?

> OK so do you give the treatment to the 10 year old kid who has a 0.000% chance of dying or the 76 year old who has a 5% chance of dying?

You're jumping all over the place with your contrived hypotheticals. Are we still talking about AIDS?

Yeah, Giuliani is 76 years old, but he behaved recklessly and there are other old people who didn't. If we're contriving hypotheticals, why should he get it an not some elderly nurse that came back from retirement to help treat COVID patients [1]?

He got it because he was connected, and there was probably someone who had more need or was more deserving who didn't get it because of him.

[1] That is a thing: https://globalnews.ca/news/7481581/texas-nurse-covid-teacher...: "A 70-year-old nurse who gave up her retirement to train a new generation of front-line workers for the pandemic has died, after contracting COVID-19 in north Texas."

I'm not jumping all over the place at all.

>> he behaved recklessly

Does that mean other people should be treated in front of him? And if that is the case should that apply in other cases where people behave recklessly?

People who shoot IV drugs behave recklessly. People who have unprotected sex behave recklessly.

Are people who do not engage in those behaviours more deserving of treatment than people who do engage in those behaviours?

I've been asking you this question about three different ways and you won't answer the question.

That's just the name of the game when you have someone high up in power looking out for you.

I wonder how the pressure from above manifested itself in that triage room. Probably something along the lines of "take extra good care of this person... or else"

He is the President of the United States' friend and attorney, and that, like it or not, probably gets the job done.

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