Helen Turnham, Guy Thorburn and Dominic Wilkinson. The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a total shut down of elective surgery within the NHS. In the forthcoming months there will be re-initiation of elective surgery but at significantly reduced capacity. The combination of pre-existing backlog, a protracted period of no surgery and an anticipated future period of […]
Category: Journal of Medical Ethics
Pandemic preparedness: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
By Lorcan O’Byrne. As students cannot match the knowledge, skills and clinical experience of a qualified doctor, one might then contend that their involvement in the care of a patient with COVID-19 would primarily be for the students’ educational benefit, rather than for the provision of meaningful healthcare. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic is necessitating that […]
Discounts for doctors. Gratitude and desert in a pandemic
By Catriona Boyd and Joshua Parker. Displays of gratitude towards healthcare workers have risen throughout the pandemic. Many businesses have offered free or discounted products and services. Morrisons, for example, announced a 10% discount for all NHS workers to “support them” during the COVID-19 pandemic; and they are by no means exceptional. This isn’t limited […]
Coronavirus and lost life: three million years
By David Shaw Everyone knows that older people are at greater risk of dying if infected with coronavirus. Some have even suggested that most people dying of the virus would have died this year or next year anyway because of their age and frailty. But this is not true. In fact, the typical person who […]
Can COVID-19 re-invigorate ethics?
By Louise Campbell The COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted ethics into the spotlight. Questions previously deliberated about by small numbers of people interested in or affected by particular issues are now being posed with an unprecedented urgency right across the public domain. One of the interesting facets of this development is the way in which the […]
Setting ourselves up for failure: a pandemic of our own making
By Ezio Di Nucci The COVID-19 pandemic is of our own making – but maybe not in the way you think. Let me explain why, taking Italy as case study. COVID-19 overwhelmingly kills vulnerable people, older or chronic multi-morbidity patients: the mean age of COVID-19 fatalities in Italy according to the most recent data was […]
COVID-19 and beyond: how to pay for new pharmaceuticals
By Felicitas Holzer, Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis. While many commentators point to the shortcomings of public health services, less attention has been paid to the chronic defects in our current pharmaceutical research system, which is similarly implicated in the disastrous effects of COVID-19. One problem is that patents, the current research rewards, do not […]
Is it wrong to prioritise health workers or public figures during Covid-19?
Alaa Daoud and Ezio Di Nucci. Over 100 health workers have died because of Covid-19 in the UK alone. Sixty-one and counting medical doctors (not including other health workers) have died in Italy in March 2020 alone from Covid-19, and 1 in 6 hospitalized Covid-19 patients was a health worker. Health workers are justifiably concerned […]
We need a framework for the ethics of secondary epidemic vaccine trials
By Joshua Teperowski Monrad Introduction In the 21st century, few medical innovations have been as intensely anticipated as an effective vaccine for COVID-19. The pipeline of candidates now includes more than a hundred potential products, as governments, pharmaceutical companies, and researchers engage in an unprecedented effort to combat the worst pandemic of a century. This […]
The UK government is encouraging people outside England to break lockdown rules
By David Shaw On Wednesday the 13th of May coronavirus lockdown restrictions were slightly eased in England. People living there can now drive anywhere in that country to get to a chosen place of exercise, can meet people from outside their households in parks, and can start playing tennis and golf again. They are also […]