By Ludovica De Panfilis, Silvia Tanzi and Massimo Costantini. The world continues to face the COVID-19 outbreak. It has radically affected health care organizations, care approaches, clinical and ethical choices, the perception of death and dying process, and people’s daily lives. Italy is the first and one of the most affected countries in Europe. The […]
Category: Journal of Medical Ethics
What the virtues have to offer in the midst of COVID-19
By Julian C. Hughes. Now more than ever, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need the virtues and the insights that virtue ethics afford us. We have all read or heard the dilemma: there is a shortage of intensive care staff or beds so that triage must take place and doctors are placed […]
COVID-19: ‘Contagion to this world’ and the demand for ethical research
By Julian C. Hughes and Julian Sheather. COVID-19 has indeed, to quote Hamlet, brought, ‘Contagion to this world’. Less than a month after it was first reported, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCoB) issued its report, Research in Global Health Emergencies: Ethical Issues. In its discussion of the ethical issues raised by global health emergencies, […]
Covid-19, Patents & Healthcare: The Need for A (Bio)ethics Space within Patent Law
By Aisling McMahon. Covid-19 was declared a pandemic on 12th March 2020 and by 9th April had claimed 81,580 lives. Covid-19 has also brought to stark reality broader inequalities and impediments in the delivery of healthcare, including the potential impacts of patents. Patents are intellectual property rights which allow the patent holder to stop others […]
New UK Government guidelines on medical abortion during the COVID-19 emergency
By Ilaria Bertini The entire world is facing one of the greatest challenges of our time: the COVID-19 pandemic. Less than two weeks ago, the UK Government announced some of the strictest measures in its history to limit the rising number of infections in the population. The National Health Service (NHS) has been forced to […]
Coronavirus and our duty to fight fake news: 10 simple rules
By David Shaw Arsonists in the UK have attacked at least 40 mobile phone masts in recent weeks because they believe that they spread coronavirus. This sounds ridiculous, but it is deadly serious. The latest fire affected the mast at the new Nightingale hospital built for virus patients in Birmingham, putting important communication channels at […]
Prioritizing justice in ventilator allocation
By L. Syd M Johnson As the Covid-19 pandemic intensified worldwide, grim reports out of Italy’s embattled and overwhelmed hospitals foretold the need to plan for rationing ventilators in the event that the number of patients requiring them exceeded the number available. Hospitals, ethics committees, and government agencies around the US began planning for the […]
Hydroxychloroquine and Critically Ill Patients with COVID-19: The role of Healthcare Professionals
By Joseph Adetola Adedigba and Sarah Perou Hermans. Currently, there are no Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pharmaceutical treatments for COVID-19, and this has led to speculations concerning the efficacy of various experimental drugs and combinations. Hydroxychloroquine has been promoted as a potential treatment for COVID-19 by United States President Donald J. Trump. On […]
Not only benefit: equity and fairness in states’ responses to COVID-19
By Nic Aagaard, Lynley Anderson, Neil Pickering A range of important ethical considerations that have arisen due to the emergence of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. A potentially important part of the international response is the role of National Ethics Committees (NECs). NECs are generally advisory committees, offering ethical comment to governments and other institutions, and […]
DNACPRs and advance care planning in the COVID19 pandemic: key lessons
By Catriona McMillan and Victoria Sobolewska Patient-doctor discussions surrounding do not attempt cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) orders amidst the COVID-19 pandemic have caused widespread, understandable panic in the UK, set against a backdrop of proportionately higher elderly deaths, discussions surrounding resource allocation (particularly with reference to ventilators), and emerging stories of rising care home deaths. Here, […]