Posted on by Californiacontrarian

A Covid-19 Dilemma


Let me present a dilemma. 

What would you do in the following situation?

Let’s assume that your mother is eighty and is residing in a nursing home. You suspect that within the week Covid-19 patients are going to be transferred from a nearby hospital to your mother’s nursing home. Would you try to get her out of that nursing home, and move her to your home or to a hotel?

I would assume that most of you would answer “yes” as this is only a temporary solution, and not a forever solution.

To make the dilemma a bit more difficult, let’s assume that your good friend was the Director of Health for that region, and she had said to you, “This is confidential. Do not tell anyone, but that nursing home that your mom is in right now is going to be receiving some Covid-19 patients from the hospital in a few days. Remember, this is all hush-hush.” 

Would you move your mother to a safer location?

Again, even though this is similar to “inside trading,” which is illegal, I am going to surmise that most of you would move her, because if she catches the coronavirus at age eighty while in the nursing home, there is a significant likelihood that she will die.

Let’s make the decision even tougher. Let’s assume that you are the Director of Health for the area, and because of your position you have learned that the Governor is going to order that Covid-19 patients be transferred into your mother’s nursing home in a day or so. This time you did not hear this from any friend, but rather you have direct inside info, and it was expected that you would not tell anybody about the upcoming transfers. 

Would you move you mother? A much tougher decision. Move her and even though you have not told anyone else, you have, in essence, betrayed the confidence of the person that told you.

Again I am going to guess that most of you would, after some serious consternation, move her.

Finally, let’s assume that you are the Director of Health, and you are the one making the decision to move the Covid-19 patients out of the hospital and into your mother’s nursing home. This decision to move them is yours . . . and only yours. Would you move her? In other words, are you doing a similar thing to inside trading? Would you buy that stock solely because you had the inside info? Would you move your mother?

I think that the decision would be extremely tough!  

Move her, and you will likely lose your position as the Director of Health.

Do not move her, and she may well get infected with Covid-19 and die!

I am interested in what your decision would be.

After you have thought this over and made your decision, I want you to know this actually happened in Pennsylvania where Ms. Levin moved her mother out of her nursing home into a hotel the day before the coronavirus patients were transferred in from the hospital, and for sure she knew these transfers were about to happen.

Was she morally right or wrong?

As of this moment, she has not been forced to resign, but I expect that she will be forced to resign in the next few days.

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