COVID-19 and algorithmic medical ethics: A Christian perspective

Abstract

Triage plans which were largely developed in the face of the growing and lethal pandemic betrayed an underlying anthropology which unintentionally neglected to allow for the assignment of potentially limited interventions to underserved and less socially advantaged persons. This neglect is abetted by the structure of US medical delivery that treats medical care as a commercial commodity with an emphasis on high tech rescue medicine as opposed to preventive public health medicine. A Christian anthropology modeled by Karl Barth’s notion of analogia relationis would correct this neglect of the underserved and needy.