- Ophthalmologists have been found to be at an especially increased risk for being infected with COVID-19 because of the nature of how close they need to be to their patients during examinations
- For this reason it is recommended that they wear eye protection while evaluating patients

Ophthalmologists and COVID-19

- Bacherini, D., Biagini, I., Lenzetti, C., Virgili, G., Rizzo, S., & Giansanti, F. (2020, April 6). The COVID-19 Pandemic from an Ophthalmologist's Perspective. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471491420300885
- Nguyen, L. H., Drew, D. A., Graham, M. S., Joshi, A. D., Guo, C.-G., Ma, W., et al. (2020, July 31). Risk of COVID-19 among front-line health-care workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30164-X/fulltext

References on COVID-19 Infection Risk Among Healthcare Workers and Ophthalmologists

- Healthcare workers have been shown to be at a largely increased risk for becoming infected with COVID-19 while compared to the general public
- Factors that affect this finding include testing, PPE, ethnic factors, and clinical setting


Michigan State University

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems faced severe operational challenges due to massive patient influxes and critical shortages of medical resources. To manage these constraints, systems adopted crisis standards of care and established specialized triage teams for resource allocation. These difficult decisions were guided by strict medical ethics rather than individual bedside clinicians to ensure fairness and reduce moral distress, while healthcare workers simultaneously navigated heightened risks of occupational infection.

Healthcare Systems During the COVID-19 Pandemic

- Journal of the American College of Cardiology
- The Lancet Public Health 
- Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)
- US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
- Journal of the Association for Consumer Research

References for Healthcare Systems During COVID-19 Pandemic by Journal

Scarce resources include, but are not limited to, intensive care unit (ICU) beds, ventilators, dialysis machines, extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation circuits, personal protective equipment (PPE), and healthcare workers.


Scarce Resources for Healthcare Systems During COVID-19

The principles of medical ethics are:
- Autonomy
- Beneficence/non-maleficence
- Justice
- Fair innings
- Instrumental value

Medical Ethics in Healthcare Systems Response to COVID-19

The standards of care, or criteria for healthcare system guidelines during the pandemic, are as follows:
- Conventional standard 
- Contingency standards
- Crisis standards

Standards of Care in COVID-19

In hospitals, triage teams reduce moral distress for clinicians and legally protect them by deciding 1) which patients should receive allocation (life-sustaining intervention) and 2) whether resources will be withdrawn from one patient and given to another. They must be transparent about their principles and decision-making factors, but the team member identities may be private. 

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