Public health officials in Idaho have authorized so-called "crisis standards of care" to help ration medical services as COVID-19 patients overwhelm that state’s hospitals.

It’s not the first time during the pandemic that some hospitals have had to ration scarce resources like rooms in their intensive care units. But now the deadly surge of the Delta variant — especially among the unvaccinated — has renewed tough questions about how overburdened medical workers can offer help to everyone who needs it, and what to do when they can’t.

Here & Now’s Tonya Mosley speaks with Daniel Wikler, a professor of ethics and population health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.