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Covid-19 Ethics Resource Center

Bioethics Forum Essay

We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us

In its early days, bioethics emphasized patient autonomy in the doctor-patient relationship. But patient autonomy is not the be-all and end-all principle to follow in all health care settings. Especially in lethal, airborne infectious disease pandemics.
Read We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us
Bioethics Forum Essay
people with suitcases traveling in China

A Warning from China: After the Zero Covid Policy

A massive wave of Covid infections has begun now that China has ended much of its zero Covid policy. Three steps ought to be taken.
Read A Warning from China: After the Zero Covid Policy
Bioethics Forum Essay

Moving On from Covid? Immunocompromised People Can’t

The best case scenario for immunocompromised people like me would be universal masking in all public spaces. But I am willing to compromise.
Read Moving On from Covid? Immunocompromised People Can’t
Bioethics Forum Essay
https://www.thehastingscenter.org/the-cdcs-misguided-medical-masking-policy/

The CDC’s Misguided Medical Masking Policy

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s revised guidelines have done away with universal masking at health care facilities, making masking optional if community Covid transmission isn’t high. It’s the latest attempt of public health officials to adapt their guidance to meet the country’s fatigued sensibilities. Some patients will be at risk.
Read The CDC’s Misguided Medical Masking Policy
Bioethics Forum Essay

How Many Covid-19 Deaths Should We Accept?

President Biden recently declared that the Covid-19 “pandemic is over.”  Some public health experts agreed with this assessment; others disagreed.  What cannot be disputed is that nearly 12,000 Americans have...
Read How Many Covid-19 Deaths Should We Accept?
Bioethics Forum Essay
four young children wearing backpacks and walking hand in hand with a woman

Back to School: The Covid Vaccination Choice

It’s back-to-school season in the United States, the third one during the Covid pandemic, but the first in which all schoolchildren are eligible for Covid vaccines. Yet fewer than a third of children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated, while the percentage of those under 5 who have started–let alone completed–vaccination is in the low single digits. Why? The answers are complicated.
Read Back to School: The Covid Vaccination Choice
Bioethics Forum Essay
woman of color holding a yellow sign with the words "thoughts" and "prayers" crossed out, and the word "action" is circled in red marker

Treating Gun Violence as a Public Health Threat: Not Exactly What We Meant

This week, the United States saw two momentous public health events: one million deaths attributed to Covid and the 198th mass shooting of the year. Both the pandemic and gun shootings are threats to public health that are not being adequately addressed.
Read Treating Gun Violence as a Public Health Threat: Not Exactly What We Meant
Bioethics Forum Essay
large crowd of protesters, one very large black sign stating "Covid-19 death rate in kids ages 0-10 is 0.0021%" in white lettering

California U-Turn on Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren

The California legislature appears to have caved to pressure from opponents of a Covid vaccine mandate for schoolkids. I’d prefer to think of it as a wise and strategic retreat from a battle that mandate advocates could not win.
Read California U-Turn on Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren
Bioethics Forum Essay

Masks, Values, and a Lesson for Democracy?

As mask mandates are rolled back and friends and neighbors debate the risks and benefits of masks and the merits or permissibility of mandating their use, we can catch a glimpse of the considerable extent to which values depend heavily on something other than pure reason. It’s a bit disappointing, perhaps. But it might be a useful lesson for democracy.
Read Masks, Values, and a Lesson for Democracy?
Bioethics Forum Essay

Resilience and the Twin Medical Catastrophes of War and Pandemic

As I sit here in my office at the Slovak Medical University in Bratislava, my colleagues are experiencing great moral anguish because of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Simultaneously, we are also confronting the Omicron wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The war complicates and burdens health care here and in other border nations exponentially, and especially so in combination with the pandemic.
Read Resilience and the Twin Medical Catastrophes of War and Pandemic
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