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      Whom Should Be Saved? A Proposed Ethical Framework for Allocating Scarce Medical Resources to COVID-19 Patients Using Fuzzy Logic

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          Abstract

          COVID-19 is a global pandemic that affected the everyday life activities of billions around the world. It is an unprecedented crisis that the modern world had never experienced before. It mainly affected the economic state and the health care system. The rapid and increasing number of infected patients overwhelmed the healthcare infrastructure, which causes high demand and, thus, shortage in the required staff members and medical resources. This shortage necessitates practical and ethical suggestions to guide clinicians and medical centers when allocating and reallocating scarce resources for and between COVID-19 patients. Many studies proposed a set of ethical principles that should be applied and implemented to address this problem. In this study, five different ethical principles based on the most commonly recommended principles and aligned with WHO guidelines and state-of-the-art practices proposed in the literature were identified, and recommendations for their applications were discussed. Furthermore, a recent study highlighted physicians' propensity to apply a combination of more than one ethical principle while prioritizing the medical resource allocation. Based on that, an ethical framework that is based on Fuzzy inference systems was proposed. The proposed framework's input is the identified ethical principles, and the output is a weighted value (per patient). This value can be used as a rank or a priority factor given to the patients based on their condition and other relevant information, like the severity of their disease status. The main idea of implementing fuzzy logic in the framework is to combine more than one principle when calculating the weighted value, hence mimicking what some physicians apply in practice. Moreover, the framework's rules are aligned with the identified ethical principles. This framework can help clinicians and guide them while making critical decisions to allocate/reallocate the limited medical resources during the current COVID-19 crisis and future similar pandemics.

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          Most cited references24

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          Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China

          Abstract Background Since December 2019, when coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) emerged in Wuhan city and rapidly spread throughout China, data have been needed on the clinical characteristics of the affected patients. Methods We extracted data regarding 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 from 552 hospitals in 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in mainland China through January 29, 2020. The primary composite end point was admission to an intensive care unit (ICU), the use of mechanical ventilation, or death. Results The median age of the patients was 47 years; 41.9% of the patients were female. The primary composite end point occurred in 67 patients (6.1%), including 5.0% who were admitted to the ICU, 2.3% who underwent invasive mechanical ventilation, and 1.4% who died. Only 1.9% of the patients had a history of direct contact with wildlife. Among nonresidents of Wuhan, 72.3% had contact with residents of Wuhan, including 31.3% who had visited the city. The most common symptoms were fever (43.8% on admission and 88.7% during hospitalization) and cough (67.8%). Diarrhea was uncommon (3.8%). The median incubation period was 4 days (interquartile range, 2 to 7). On admission, ground-glass opacity was the most common radiologic finding on chest computed tomography (CT) (56.4%). No radiographic or CT abnormality was found in 157 of 877 patients (17.9%) with nonsevere disease and in 5 of 173 patients (2.9%) with severe disease. Lymphocytopenia was present in 83.2% of the patients on admission. Conclusions During the first 2 months of the current outbreak, Covid-19 spread rapidly throughout China and caused varying degrees of illness. Patients often presented without fever, and many did not have abnormal radiologic findings. (Funded by the National Health Commission of China and others.)
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            The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence

            Summary The December, 2019 coronavirus disease outbreak has seen many countries ask people who have potentially come into contact with the infection to isolate themselves at home or in a dedicated quarantine facility. Decisions on how to apply quarantine should be based on the best available evidence. We did a Review of the psychological impact of quarantine using three electronic databases. Of 3166 papers found, 24 are included in this Review. Most reviewed studies reported negative psychological effects including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger. Stressors included longer quarantine duration, infection fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma. Some researchers have suggested long-lasting effects. In situations where quarantine is deemed necessary, officials should quarantine individuals for no longer than required, provide clear rationale for quarantine and information about protocols, and ensure sufficient supplies are provided. Appeals to altruism by reminding the public about the benefits of quarantine to wider society can be favourable.
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              Fuzzy sets

              L.A. Zadeh (1965)
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Med (Lausanne)
                Front Med (Lausanne)
                Front. Med.
                Frontiers in Medicine
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                2296-858X
                22 March 2021
                2021
                22 March 2021
                : 8
                : 600415
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Computer Science Department, King Abdullah II School of Information Technology, The University of Jordan , Amman, Jordan
                [2] 2Computer Engineering and Informatics, School of Science and Technology, Middlesex University Dubai , Dubai, United Arab Emirates
                [3] 3Electrical Engineering and Computing Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology in Dubai , Dubai, United Arab Emirates
                Author notes

                Edited by: Maysa Al-Hussaini, King Hussein Cancer Center, Jordan

                Reviewed by: Rolf Bass, Retired, Berlin, Germany; Domenico Criscuolo, Italian Society of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Italy

                *Correspondence: Heba Saadeh heba.saadeh@ 123456ju.edu.jo

                This article was submitted to Regulatory Science, a section of the journal Frontiers in Medicine

                †These authors have contributed equally to this work

                Article
                10.3389/fmed.2021.600415
                8020032
                33829020
                417f7ed6-d8b6-4aef-a724-147a25d99fc6
                Copyright © 2021 Saadeh, Saadeh and Almobaideen.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 30 August 2020
                : 22 February 2021
                Page count
                Figures: 2, Tables: 0, Equations: 1, References: 32, Pages: 8, Words: 5827
                Categories
                Medicine
                Original Research

                covid-19,ethical framework,ethical principles,fuzzy logic,resource allocation,scarce resources,who ethical guidelines

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