If the pandemic surge of hospitalizations becomes bad enough that it forces hospitals here into triage standards of care, a potential patient’s age could be a factor, according to an updated triage plan for COVID-19. It would be considered as a “tiebreaker” between two patients, judged to have equal survival chances, in allotting care resources.

The best response to this reality is not to whine, but to see that medics never have to manage care like this. Those who haven’t done so: Get vaccinated.

Change in ‘dawn to dusk’ lifeguards

The city’s HNL.Info app, which offers customized alerts on traffic, weather, and ocean safety, is now also issuing notice of “temporary or intermittent” closures of lifeguard towers around Oahu. The Honolulu Ocean Safety Division said in a news release that the closures are due to staffing constraints tied to a city mandate requiring a “dawn to dusk” lifeguarding program.

When the program, which added duty hours, was launched this summer, Ocean Safety began dispatching additional mobile units to ensure lifeguards’ availability to respond to 911 calls. The units will patrol beaches where lifeguards are not in towers. Be safe out there, beachgoers.