By Vic Larcher and Joe Brierley. Countries throughout the world are counting the health and socio-economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the strategies necessary to contain it. Profound consequences from social isolation are beginning to emerge, and there is an urgency about charting a path to recovery, albeit to a “new normal” that mitigates […]
Category: Pandemic
Autonomy under Lockdown
By Ben Colburn. In my philosophical work I mostly think about the nature and value of personal autonomy. Autonomy consists in an individual deciding for herself what is valuable, and living her life in accordance with that decision. Living an autonomous life means living a life which is valuable for you in your own eyes. […]
The UK Government’s COVID-19 legal strategy is compromising end-of-life ethics and human rights compliance
By Stephen Thomson. End-of-life ethics and the human rights of dying patients and their families are being compromised by the UK Government’s legal and communications response to COVID-19. Despite NHS England’s Visitor Guidance continuing to state that one immediate family member or carer will be permitted to visit a patient who is receiving end-of-life care, […]
Lives vs equity – analysing the dilemma in the COVID-19 response
By Neil Pickering An ethical tension that COVID-19 highlights is between saving lives and acting equitably. Bluntly, in the current circumstances, it may be that any weight given to equity will potentially cost lives. This need not always be the case, of course. The two can both be realised at one and the same time […]
The many meanings of “stay safe” in a pandemic: Sympathy, duty, and threat
By David Shaw. You’re out for a walk, your daily exercise since the pandemic began. You bump into someone you know (metaphorically speaking), exchange a few words about life under lockdown from the other side of the road, and then wish them well before setting off again. Chances are you wish them well with the […]
Compulsory treatment or vaccination versus quarantine
By Thomas Douglas, Jonathan Pugh and Lisa Forsberg. Governments worldwide have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with sweeping constraints on freedom of movement, including various forms of isolation, quarantine, and ‘lockdown’. Governments have also introduced new legal instruments to guarantee the lawfulness of their measures. In the UK, the Coronavirus Act 2020 gives the government […]
How much certainty is enough? Immunity passports and COVID-19
By Rebecca brown, Julian Savulescu, Bridget Williams and Dominic Wilkinson. There is significant debate about whether or not ‘immunity passports’ are a viable tool to use in responding to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Much of this has focused on the lack of a sufficiently reliable antibody test, and uncertainty about the immune status of individuals […]
PPE may protect us, but it harms the sweatshop workers who make it
Arianne Shahvisi and Mei Trueba. One of the greatest controversies of the UK coronavirus crisis is the shortage of PPE for NHS workers. Yet most PPE is made in sweatshops, and its production endangers the health of those who make it. Ironically, workers who produce personal protective equipment for others invariably have inadequate protection themselves. […]
What are the obligations of the state? A public mental health ethics perspective on the Covid-19 lockdowns
By Daisy Cheung and Eric C. Ip. The Covid-19 crisis has led to the unprecedented and widespread use of lockdown measures all over the world. With such drastic measures being imposed so widely and on such short notice, the concern is that the Covid-19 precedent, which has allowed the suspension of a wide range of […]
COVID-19: Should we allocate health care resources based on citizens’ individual contribution to society?
By Rebecca Limb There has not been a time in recent memory where the NHS’s resources have been under so much pressure that questions around resource allocation have become pressing and persistent ethical concerns. With COVID-19 lockdown measures due to be eased in the coming weeks there is a significant threat of a second […]