**6. Ethics in pandemic**

In the event of a pandemic, the crucial role of the government, the community, and the health system is to intervene to isolate the disease and slow the spread of the infection. The health system should prepare for an epidemic peak by implementing care capabilities. If the epidemic peak exceeds the available resources necessary to cope with it, a careful resource allocation policy is indispensable. An appropriate resource allocation policy requires first identifying the decision-makers in charge of setting priorities in the distribution. Precise identification of the resources that are limited in time and require a distribution plan is essential. It is necessary to identify the subjects who can benefit most from the use of that particular resource. Finally, it is useful to determine if there is an ethical justification for giving certain groups a priority over others.

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**Author details**

Rome, Italy

Andrea Montalto\* and Francesco Musumeci

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: andrea.montalto@libero.it

Department of Cardiac Surgery and Heart Trasplantation, San Camillo Hospital,

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Innovation and Research in Cardiac Surgery: Bioethical Aspects*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94160*

*Innovation and Research in Cardiac Surgery: Bioethical Aspects DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94160*
