Regarding the moral quandary of who to give Paxlovid to: there are practical reasons to give it to the vaccinated person. Namely—it increases the probability that the treatment will be successful if the person you’re giving it to already has good survival odds.
Yep, you want to target your interventions where you’ll see the greatest gains relative to no intervention. If you have a miracle cure, you’d focus on those with the lowest untreated odds.
(In the specific case, however, you have to consider whether you’re disincentivizing vaccination by giving better treatment to the unvaccinated.)
Regarding the moral quandary of who to give Paxlovid to: there are practical reasons to give it to the vaccinated person. Namely—it increases the probability that the treatment will be successful if the person you’re giving it to already has good survival odds.
By that logic, you’d rather give it to someone who isn’t infected in the first place.
I need to refine it a bit, I guess. But isn’t picking your battles a principle in triage?
Yep, you want to target your interventions where you’ll see the greatest gains relative to no intervention. If you have a miracle cure, you’d focus on those with the lowest untreated odds.
(In the specific case, however, you have to consider whether you’re disincentivizing vaccination by giving better treatment to the unvaccinated.)