Many experts have warned that environmental degradation is increasing the likelihood of future pandemics like COVID-19, as habitat loss and poaching increase close contact between wildlife and people. This fact has been framed as a reason to increase wildlife conservation efforts. We have many good reasons to step up conservation efforts, but arguments for doing so on the basis of pandemic prevention are rhetorically, ethically, and empricially flawed.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first appeared in China in late 2019 and since then it has become a pandemic. Various countries, in accordance with their cultures, have adopted different approaches to deal with the spread of this disease. The dimensions of this disease and its global spread are such that it will certainly have enormous effects on various aspects of human life for many years. One of these issues is examining the approach of religious countries in (...) dealing with this crisis. The issue of science and religion is one of the main issues in the philosophy of religion. A historical event that human society is struggling with today is the COVID-19 crisis. The issues of religion and science were intertwined during the COVID-19 outbreak, contrary to what some thought. This shows that the opposition between religion and science is not real but aims to attack religion without a valid reason. Given the importance of the subject, this article addresses two aspects of people’s exposure to religion during the COVID-19 period. On the one hand, the researchers’ field observations indicate that group of citizens has turned towards religious teachings since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. On the other hand, another group of citizens have distanced themselves from religiosity, raising the duality of science and religion.Contribution: This article describes the dual attitude of citizens towards religiosity due to the occurrence of COVID-19, which has not been previously considered in research. (shrink)

This paper has two objectives 1) to study the influence of digital and new technology on COVID-19 diagnosis and healthcare 2) To propose the integral guideline solutions of the infectious disease for the future. COVID-19 stands for corona (CO), virus (VI), disease (D), or SARS-CoV-2, is a respiratory virus first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China(WHO, 2019). It is an epidemiological crisis that caused the deaths and sudden destruction of wealth and health of people around (...) the world. Many countries responded to the crisis with what could only be called urgent prevention and treatment. In the 21st century, our society is based on digital and new technology that can control and prevent the COVID-19 pandemics. However, these ways for solving the problem of COVID-19 pandemics are rising an epistemological crisis too. There are some problems with the COVID-19 diagnosis. From Buddhist philosophy perspective, COVID-19 teaches us the coronavirus is causing us to experience some heightened forms of the three marks of our existence which are the impermanence (aniccā), the suffering (duḥkha), and the non-self (anatta). The establishment of scientific expertise and innovation has shown its value and educating the public about testing, diagnosis, communication, treatment, and vaccine development technology for prevention the of infectious diseases in the future. (shrink)

Governmental reactions to crises like the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as ethics communication. Governments can contain the disease and thereby mitigate the detrimental public health impact; allow the virus to spread to reach herd immunity; test, track, isolate, and treat; and suppress the disease regionally. An observation of Sweden and Finland showed a difference in feasible ways to communicate the chosen policy to the citizenry. Sweden assumed the herd immunity strategy and backed it up with health (...) utilitarian arguments. This was easy to communicate to the Swedish people, who appreciated the voluntary restrictions approach and trusted their decision makers. Finland chose the contain and mitigate strategy and was towards the end of the observation period apparently hesitating between suppression and the test, track, isolate, and treat approach. Both are difficult to communicate to the general public accurately, truthfully, and acceptably. Apart from health utilitarian argumentation, something like the republican political philosophy or selective truth telling are needed. The application of republicanism to the issue, however, is problematic, and hiding the truth seems to go against the basic tenets of liberal democracy. (shrink)

The next pandemic will erupt, not from the jungle, but from the disease factories of hospitals, refugee camps and cities. Wendy Orent, How Plagues Really Work,.

The infection rates of COVID-19 have been exponential in some countries despite the imposition of infectious disease control measures such as lockdowns and physical distancing, which form one of the basic principles of public health and infectious disease control. There have been significant problems with leaders and citizenry deliberately ignoring and not complying with such measures and which have directly resulted in sudden rises in infection numbers. Here, I show the nature and extent of the widespread problem (...) and argue that the problem is in large part due to our modern society characterised by liberal individualism. I apply the philosophy proposed by philosopher Alasdair MacIntrye to show that one key underlying cause of the non-compliant behaviour of citizenry is due to modern liberal individualism that has deprived the modern nation state of the opportunities and authority for it to teach or to dictate what is the common good of the society as a whole to individuals in its community. This is the first time MacIntyre’s philosophy has been applied to public health, and this paper demonstrates the need for ethics education to counter-balance liberal individualism in order to contain and to prevent another pandemic and public health crisis in modern society. (shrink)

The global spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) or coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) has led to the imposition of severely restrictive measures by governments in the Western hemisphere. We feel a contrast between these measures and our freedom. This contrast, we argue, is a false perception. It only appears to us because we look at the issue through our contemporary moral philosophy of utilitarianism and an understanding of freedom as absence of constraints. Both these (...) views can be substituted with more sophisticated alternatives, namely an ethics of virtue and a notion of freedom of the will. These offer a fuller picture of morality and enable us to cooperate with the current restrictions by consciously choosing to adhere to them instead of perceiving them as draconian and immoral. We ask whether we should collaborate with the restrictions and argue that considerations of virtue will lead to an affirmative answer. More broadly, virtue ethics permits to deal with the practical concerns about how an individual should behave during this pandemic, given the current lockdown measures or lack thereof. -/- In section 1, we present how utilitarianism and a notion of freedom as negative liberty support the opposition to restrictive measures. In section 2, we outline an alternative based on an ethics of virtue and a more elaborated notion of free will. In the concluding section 3, we argue that considerations of virtue should guide the individual and public response to the emergency. (shrink)

After the discovery of the origins of the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to be possibly wet markets in Wuhan, China, the normative questions of what ought to be the ethical relations between human beings and non-human animals have started to attract renewed interest among environmentalists. Although these are not new questions in environmental philosophy, the impact of COVID-19 across the world is challenging human beings to seriously reconsider some of these often-neglected questions. In this article, (...) I examine COVID-19 as essentially an environmental ethical challenge. Specifically, I consider the extent to which the relationships between human and non-human animals can effectively impact the health and lives of humanity and the environment at large. I then provide some alternative ways by which human beings ought to re-think their relationships with non-human animals to avoid future catastrophes like COVID-19. I argue that the African view of animal ethics could at least provide a valuable lens through which to view correct relations between human beings and non-human animals. Ultimately, I set forth and defend an African environmental ethic for the right relations between human beings and animals and to show how such an ethic better places humanity in confronting future zoonoses. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified interest in animals with superior antiviral defences. I argue that the role of such animals in biomedical research contrasts with the role of disease models.

The World Health Organization has issued international instructions for certification and classification (coding) of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as cause of death. Central to these instructions is the selection of the underlying cause of death for a public health preventive purpose. This article focuses on two rules for this selection: (1) that a death due to COVID-19 should be counted independently of pre-existing conditions that are suspected of triggering a severe course of COVID-19 and (2) that (...) COVID-19 should not be considered as due to anything else. The article argues that observance of the first rule may not always lead to an optimal selection from a preventive point of view and that in the future the ascertainment of an animal source of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) would make it possible to reconceptualize ‘COVID-19‘ and create a zoonotic classification code by means of which a factor of a greater preventive value could be selected than what is currently possible. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the topical collection Microbes, Networks, Knowledge: Disease Ecology in the twentieth Century, based on a workshop held at Queen Mary, University London on July 6–7 2016. More than twenty years ago, historian of science and medicine Andrew Mendelsohn asked, “Where did the modern, ecological understanding of epidemic disease come from?” Moving beyond Mendelsohn’s answer, this collection of new essays considers the global history of disease ecology in the past century and shows how (...) epidemics and pandemics have made “microbes complex”. (shrink)

Epidemiological models have played a central role in the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly when urgent decisions were required and available evidence was sparse. They have been used to predict the evolution of the disease and to inform policy-making. In this paper, we address two kinds of epidemiological models widely used in the pandemic, namely, compartmental models and agent-based models. After describing their essentials—some real examples are invoked—we discuss their main strengths and weaknesses. Then, on the basis of this analysis, (...) we make a comparison between their respective merits concerning three different goals: prediction, explanation, and intervention. We argue that there are general considerations which could favour any of those sorts of models for obtaining the aforementioned goals. We conclude, however, that preference for particular models must be grounded case-by-case since additional contextual factors, as the peculiarities of the target population and the aims and expectations of policy-makers, cannot be overlooked. (shrink)

The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disrupted, affected and changed human lives in many ways, namely: physically, emotionally, financially, psychologically and spiritually. Apart from people losing their lives and the lives of loved ones, others lost their jobs in numbers. Poverty levels and unemployment increased during this period. In order to mitigate the devastating effects of COVID-19, the South African government introduced a relief grant. As we welcome this gesture of goodwill by government, it is argued (...) in this article that the church in every given locality and from every denomination should serve as the agency of change in order to alleviate poverty and unemployment in South Africa. The research question that this article seeks to address is: What role can the church play as a change agent in the context of poverty and unemployment in South Africa? Whilst qualitative literature study is undertaken to unpack issues of COVID-19, poverty, unemployment and church agency, this article is also approached from a broader missiological framework. Tapping into the resourcefulness of the early Christian church koinonia and the African concept of ubuntu, the article locates the church as an agent of change not only as a way of ending poverty and unemployment in South Africa, but also as a way meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 1 (UN SDG1).Contribution: It is therefore the aim of this article not only to call for the agency of the church but to also demonstrate that Christian koinonia as a lived experience of the early Christian church and African ubuntu philosophy can serve as tools for the church to bring about transformation. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the formulation and analysis of an epidemic model of COVID-19 governed by an eight-dimensional system of ordinary differential equations, by taking into account the first dose and the second dose of vaccinated individuals in the population. The developed model is analyzed and the threshold quantity known as the control reproduction number R0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {R}_{0}$$\end{document} is obtained. We investigate the equilibrium stability of the system, and the (...) class='Hi'>COVID-free equilibrium is said to be locally asymptotically stable when the control reproduction number is less than unity, and unstable otherwise. Using the least-squares method, the model is calibrated based on the cumulative number of COVID-19 reported cases and available information about the mass vaccine administration in Malaysia between the 24th of February 2021 and February 2022. Following the model fitting and estimation of the parameter values, a global sensitivity analysis was performed by using the Partial Rank Correlation Coefficient (PRCC) to determine the most influential parameters on the threshold quantities. The result shows that the effective transmission rate (α)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$(\alpha )$$\end{document}, the rate of first vaccine dose (ϕ)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$(\phi )$$\end{document}, the second dose vaccination rate (σ)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$(\sigma )$$\end{document} and the recovery rate due to the second dose of vaccination (η)\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$(\eta )$$\end{document} are the most influential of all the model parameters. We further investigate the impact of these parameters by performing a numerical simulation on the developed COVID-19 model. The result of the study shows that adhering to the preventive measures has a huge impact on reducing the spread of the disease in the population. Particularly, an increase in both the first and second dose vaccination rates reduces the number of infected individuals, thus reducing the disease burden in the population. (shrink)

Community forms a crux of human living. In the wake of pandemic like Covid-19 to avoid community transmission what is most required of a responsible community member is to follow physical distancing to curb the spread of the infectious disease and this may lead to a feeling of isolation and loneliness. But this essay speaks of isolation with a positive connotation. It talks of isolation as solitude as the Indian philosophy also speaks extensively about this sense of (...) self-contemplation and reflection to understand others as we need to know our own selves. The say speaks of isolation as understood in Sāṃkhya philosophy. This essay talks of isolated consciousness and the three gunas particularly of the sattvic predicaments that enables positive mental development in human beings which is much needed in these tested times as the present pandemic. (shrink)

Diagnostic testing can be used for many purposes, including testing to facilitate the clinical care of individual patients, testing as an inclusion criterion for clinical trial participation, and both passive and active surveillance testing of the general population in order to facilitate public health outcomes, such as the containment or mitigation of an infectious disease. As such, diagnostic testing presents us with ethical questions that are, in part, already addressed in the literature on clinical care as well as clinical (...) research (such as the rights of patients to refuse testing or treatment in the clinical setting or the rights of participants in randomized controlled trials to withdraw from the trial at any time). However, diagnostic testing, for the purpose of disease surveillance also raises ethical issues that we do not encounter in these settings, and thus have not been much discussed. In this paper we will be concerned with the similarities and differences between the ethical considerations in these three domains: clinical care, clinical research, and public health, as they relate to diagnostic testing specifically. Via an examination of the COVID-19 case we will show how an appeal to the concept of diagnostic justice helps us to make sense of the (at times competing) ethical considerations in these three domains. (shrink)

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan bagaimana kondisi dan iklim pemahaman masyarakat mengenai qada dan qadar dalam konteks di tengah pandemi saat ini, khususnya pada masyarakat dusun pereng desa Ngasin Balongpanggang Gresik yang masih banyak disalahpahami oleh beberapa lapisan masyarakat awam. hal ini sebagai basic awal dalam melakukan upaya preventif penyebaran covid-19 (Corona Virus Diseases-19) melalui rekonseptualisasi nilai-nilai qada dan qadar. Adapun penelitian ini menggunakan kualitatif deskriptif, yakni menganalisis dan menyajikan fakta secara sistematis, sehingga dapat lebih mudah untuk dipahami dan (...) disimpulkan. Sedangkan sumber data dibagi menjadi dua, yakni primer adalah sumber data asli yang didapatkan secara langsung dari objek penelitian agar mendapatlan data yang pasti dan Sekunder, data yang diperoleh secara literatur dengan mencari informasi dan data berupa jurnal, buku-buku, dan media sosial yang bersangkutan dengan kesadaran masyarakat dalam melakukan upaya preventif penyebaran covid-19. Hasil penelitian adalah masih banyak sekali perusakan makna mengenai qada dan qadar dalam pemahaman masyarakat yang dilatarbelakangi oleh sistem kepercayaan animisme dan dinamisme yang pernah dipegang oleh nenek moyang mereka pada masa lalu, sehingga Covid-19 kemudian sangat rentan menular dari satu muslim ke muslim yang lain. (shrink)

Background Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, different countries sought to manufacture and supply effective vaccines to control the disease and prevent and protect public health in society. The implementation of vaccination has created many ethical dilemmas for humans, which must be recognized and resolved. Therefore, the present study was conducted to analyze the ethical considerations in vaccination against COVID-19 from the perspective of service providers. Methods The present qualitative research was conducted in 2022 in the (...) north of Iran. The participants included 23 health workers with at least five years of work experience and members of the COVID-19 vaccination team. The data were initially collected through systematic semi-structured interviews, then snowball sampling and finally continued until data saturation. The next steps were transcription of interviews, identification of meaning units, coding, categorization based on similarity and symmetry, extraction of themes and the analysis of themes through content analysis. Results The analysis of participants’ experiences led to the extraction of five main categories of themes and fifteen sub-categories of the ethical considerations of COVID-19 vaccination. Safe and standard vaccine production, vaccine supply, fairness, respect for autonomy, and accountability were the main categories. The subcategories included compliance with scientific and ethical procedures, effectiveness and profitability of vaccine, absence of severe adverse effects, allocation of resources for vaccine supply, vaccine availability, diversity and comprehensiveness of alternative vaccines, vaccination prioritization, prioritization of the vulnerable populations of society, autonomy of patient (equal rights), autonomy of community, autonomy of service providers, reporting correct information, reporting vaccine side effects, public trust and acceptance. Conclusion The health system managers should be adequately prepared to solve the ethical problems posed by COVID-19 vaccination. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid haste in vaccination and pay more attention to vaccination safety standards, provide sufficient resources for a comprehensive vaccine supply, pay close attention to collective interests versus individual interests, and meet community needs. (shrink)

The current strategy of searching for an effective treatment for COVID-19 relies mainly on repurposing existing therapies developed to target other diseases. Conflicting results have emerged in regard to the efficacy of several tested compounds but later results were negative. The number of conducted and ongoing trials and the urgent need for a treatment pose the risk that false-positive results will be incorrectly interpreted as evidence for treatments’ efficacy and a ground for drug approval. Our purpose is twofold. First, (...) we show that the number of drug-repurposing trials can explain the false-positive results. Second, we assess the evidence for treatments’ efficacy from the perspective of evidential pluralism and argue that considering mechanistic evidence is particularly needed in cases when the evidence from clinical trials is conflicting or of low quality. Our analysis is an application of the program of Evidence Based Medicine Plus to the drug repurposing trials for COVID. Our study shows that if decision-makers applied EBM+, authorizing the use of ineffective treatments would be less likely. We analyze the example of trials assessing the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 and mechanistic evidence in favor of and against its therapeutic power to draw a lesson for decision-makers and drug agencies on how excessive hypothesis testing can lead to spurious findings and how studying negative mechanistic evidence can be helpful in discriminating genuine from spurious results. (shrink)

Although fear and anxiety have gradually become a shared experience in the time of COVID-19, few studies have examined its content from historical, cultural, and phenomenological perspectives concerning the self-awareness and alterity. We discuss the development of the ubiquitous nature of Taijin-kyōfushō (TKS), a subtype of social anxiety disorder (SAD) originated and considered culturally-bound in the 1930s Japan involving fear of offending or displeasing other people. Considering the historical processes of disease classification, advances in cognitive neurosciences, and the (...) need to better understand the content of suffering, psychiatric nosology for SAD still appears controversial and requires further investigations. (shrink)

COVID-19 has substantially affected our lives during 2020. Since its beginning, several epidemiological models have been developed to investigate the specific dynamics of the disease. Early COVID-19 epidemiological models were purely statistical, based on a curve-fitting approach, and did not include causal knowledge about the disease. Yet, these models had predictive capacity; thus they were used to ground important political decisions, in virtue of the understanding of the dynamics of the pandemic that they offered. This raises (...) a philosophical question about how purely statistical models can yield understanding, and if so, what the relationship between prediction and understanding in these models is. Drawing on the model that was developed by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, we argue that early epidemiological models yielded a modality of understanding that we call descriptive understanding, which contrasts with the so-called explanatory understanding which is assumed to be the main form of scientific understanding. We spell out the exact details of how descriptive understanding works, and efficiently yields understanding of the phenomena. Finally, we vindicate the necessity of studying other modalities of understanding that go beyond the conventionally assumed explanatory understanding. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of perceived vulnerability to disease, emotions (disgust, anger), and perceived norms in predicting moral judgments of anti-COVID-19-preventive behaviors in US and Japan. A total of 442 Japanese and 365 American participants completed an online survey. Disgust and anger mediated the link between perceived vulnerability to disease (germ aversion) and moral judgments of preventive behaviors across both cultures. Perceived social norms among friends and family were associated with harsh (...) judgments of anti-preventive behaviors for Japanese but not for American participants. Overall, our results suggest that effective strategies for promoting preventive behaviors may be culturally valid if they focus on the fear for infectious disease and related aversive affect. We also discussed the possibility that some strategies could be characteristic of collectivistic cultures, warranting further cross-cultural comparisons. (shrink)

With the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), global researchers were confronted with major challenges. The German National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON) was launched in fall 2020 to effectively leverage resources and bundle research activities in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We analyzed the setup phase of NAPKON as an example for multicenter studies in Germany, highlighting challenges and optimization potential in connecting 59 university and nonuniversity study sites. We examined the (...) ethics application process of 121 ethics submissions considering durations, annotations, and outcomes. Study site activation and recruitment processes were investigated and related to the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections. For all initial ethics applications, the median time to a positive ethics vote was less than two weeks and 30 of these study sites (65%) joined NAPKON within less than three weeks each. Electronic instead of postal ethics submission (9.5 days (Q1: 5.75, Q3: 17) vs. 14 days (Q1: 11, Q3: 26), p value = 0.01) and adoption of the primary ethics vote significantly accelerated the ethics application process. Each study center enrolled a median of 37 patients during the 14-month observation period, with large differences depending on the health sector. We found a positive correlation between recruitment performance and COVID-19 incidence as well as hospitalization incidence. Our analysis highlighted the challenges and opportunities of the federated system in Germany. Digital ethics application tools, adoption of a primary ethics vote and standardized formal requirements lead to harmonized and thus faster study initiation processes during a pandemic. (shrink)

This article proposes a critical paradigm to identify missional areas that have received scant attention from the church and to theorise ways in which alternative modes of doing mission in the context of coronavirus disease 2019 present a solution against tendencies which marginalise and exploit the poor. Examining ways in which local churches in South Africa responded to challenges posed by COVID-19, the article identifies socioeconomic challenges that have been neglected by the church to posit that COVID-19 (...) has disrupted traditional practices and exposed missional blind spots. Building on Keum’s ideas of ‘reversal of roles’ and a shift of the mission concept from ‘mission to the margins’ to ‘mission from the margins’, the article notes that shifting of religion from public to private sphere as a result of COVID-19 will redefine the church and proposes that church mission should be located where the poor people are. The article concludes that COVID-19 disruptions allow for emergence of alternative ways of being church and new modes of socioeconomic organisation with new possibilities presented through an alternative theoretical hermeneutics of missiology that locates experiences of the poor at the centre.Contribution: This article represents a systematic and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse. (shrink)

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 現代科技日新月異，令我們生活更為方便，但亦帶來不少的道德問題。本文的主旨，正是從應用倫理學的角度來討論如何處理在2019冠狀病毒病持續全球大流行下，由此而來的私隱倫理問題。本文會特別聚焦在高等教育與社 會預防及控制疾病政策這兩組例子當中涉及的私隱問題。根據後果評價的道德框架，本文會討論私隱與私隱權利的概念，還有不完整排序下最大化與最優化的分別。之後本文會討論控制論述與讀取論述對失去私隱的意義，然後會 探討親密關係與私隱價值的互動，以此説明若要解決一些私隱的道德議題，討論親密關係的重要性是不可避免的。最後本文會詳細討論如何運用以上的分析，來處理兩組例子所涉及的私隱倫理問題。 Alongside greater convenience, the rapid development of technology in the modern world has also brought about many ethical problems. This article examines privacy issues that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of applied ethics. It focuses on two specific examples of privacy issues that emerged in higher education and social policy amid attempts to prevent and control the disease. Based on the moral framework of (...) consequential evaluation, this article discusses the concepts of privacy and privacy rights and the difference between maximization and optimization in the context of an incomplete ranking of options. This article also discusses two ways that the loss of privacy has been understood: the control account and the access account. Another important discussion in the article is the place of privacy in the context of intimate relationships, and why the resolution of some issues concerning privacy requires a discussion of the concept of intimacy. Based on the above analysis, this article concludes with a discussion of how to evaluate the privacy issues in the two examples. (shrink)

This article examines how coronavirus disease 2019 impacted on religion–state relations in South Africa. By examining the models of religion–state relations the article highlights the implications of these relations in the context of the South African government’s national response to COVID-19 and critically engages a public theology of ‘immense trust and authority’ assigned to leaders. The article identifies ‘separation with interaction’ as a model, which informs the South African government’s state–religion engagement. Although this model is constitutional and promotes (...) religious freedom, the article identifies the government’s failure to act decisively on religious leaders who exploit the poor as a major obstacle to socio-economic and religious transformation. The article contends that the dark part of South African history presents a dilemma to church–state relations in South Africa and suggests that life-affirming practices of political and religious leaders should be tested through the values of goodness, kindness, justice and obedience as a demonstration that they are essential workers who have an important transformational role to play in the context of COVID-19.Contribution: This article represents a systematic and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences generates an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse. (shrink)

The disruptions of coronavirus disease 2019 in the year 2020 reshaped all aspects of life, including religious practices and rituals. As more religious activities shifted to digital space during the lockdown periods, there was a growing need to examine the link between religion and digital media. Using the model of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, this article draws on the notion of transversal rationality and concepts of rationality, cognitive, evaluative and pragmatic to posit that COVID-19 has (...) configured traditional missional and liturgical spaces in ways that locate the agency of the marginalised at the centre. The article highlights how COVID-19 configured Christian mission as it disrupted power dynamics through religious digital spaces, which emerged as a new way of reimaging a missional church. These new digital spaces mediate between interaction and ‘telepresence’, embodied in the representations of the sacred available through online religious systems in practices where users are no longer ordinary believers – but religious participants who have power and freedom to choose. Although this is not a new phenomenon, the article concludes that such spaces created by COVID-19 shifts in power dynamics present opportunities for ordinary members to reinvent new meanings on what it means to be present or absent, to name, narrate and reinterpret the divine and forge new meanings towards participating in the mission of God.Contribution: Although this is not a new phenomenon, this article represents a systematic and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse. (shrink)

In the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, the phrase “Flattening the curve” has become a rallying cry, popularized by government leaders and journalist in the news and on the social media. FTC is a succinct way of communicating an important public health message that physical distancing, mask-wearing and other public health measures will decrease the peak number of cases and prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed. However, while the message of FTC is right in the sense that limiting transmission (...) will reduce the peak number of cases, some visualizations used to illustrate its effect are incorrect from an infectious disease modelling point of view. The misconceptions are misinterpretations of flattened curves, the effect of FTC on the duration of the pandemic, the dynamics of the curve to be flattened, and the overestimation of the importance of FTC. (shrink)

BackgroundThe contemporary frameworks for clinical research require informed consent for research participation that includes disclosure of material information, comprehension of disclosed information and voluntary consent to research participation. There is thus an urgent need to test, and an ethical imperative, to test, modify or refine medications or healthcare plans that could reduce patient morbidity, lower healthcare costs or strengthen healthcare systems.MethodsConceptual review.DiscussionAlthough some allocation principles seem better than others, no single moral principle allocates interventions justly, necessitating combining the moral principles (...) into multiprinciple allocation systems. The urgency notwithstanding, navigating ethical challenges related to conducting corona virus disease (COVID-19) clinical trials is mandatory, in order to safeguard the safety and welfare of research participants, ensure autonomy of participants, reduce possibilities for exploitation and ensure opportunities for research participation. The ethical challenges to can be categorized as challenges in allocation of resources for research; challenges of clinical equipoise in relation to the research questions; challenges of understanding disclosed information in potential participants; and challenges in obtaining informed consent.ConclusionTo navigate these challenges, stakeholders need a delicate balance of moral principles during allocation of resources for research. Investigators need to apply information processing theories to aid decision-making about research participation or employ acceptable modifications to improve the informed consent process. Research and ethics committees should strengthen research review and oversight to ensure rigor, responsiveness and transparency. (shrink)

Although every emerging infectious disease occurs in a unique context, the behaviour of previous pandemics offers an insight into the medium- and long-term outcomes of the current threat. Where an informative historical analogue exists, epidemiologists and policymakers should consider how the insights of the past can inform current forecasts and responses.

In this work, we study and analyze the aggregate death counts of COVID-19 reported by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the fifty states in the United States. To do this, we derive a stochastic model describing the cumulative number of deaths reported daily by CDC from the first time Covid-19 death is recorded to June 20, 2021 in the United States, and provide a forecast for the death cases. The stochastic model (...) derived in this work performs better than existing deterministic logistic models because it is able to capture irregularities in the sample path of the aggregate death counts. The probability distribution of the aggregate death counts is derived, analyzed, and used to estimate the count’s per capita initial growth rate, carrying capacity, and the expected value for each given day as at the time this research is conducted. Using this distribution, we estimate the expected first passage time when the aggregate death count is slowing down. Our result shows that the expected aggregate death count is slowing down in all states as at the time this analysis is conducted (June 2021). A formula for predicting the end of Covid-19 deaths is derived. The daily expected death count for each states is plotted as a function of time. The probability density function for the current day, together with the forecast and its confidence interval for the next four days, and the root mean square error for our simulation results are estimated. (shrink)

Background Ethical reasoning and sensitivity are always important in public health, but it is especially important in the sensitive and complex area of public health emergency preparedness. Here, we explored the ethical challenges, and dilemmas encountered by frontline health workers amid the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic in Ethiopia. Methods A nationwide survey was conducted amongst the frontline health workers from nineteen public hospitals. Health workers were invited to respond to a self-administered questionnaire. Data were weighted and analyzed using (...) descriptive statistics. Results Of the 285 frontline health workers to whom questionnaires were distributed, 217 of them gave their responses (response rate 76.1%). Respondents frequently reported encountering rationing dilemmas on health commodities directly used for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Most (83.9%) of the health workers agreed that they encountered ethical challenges very frequently or frequently. Almost all [215(99.1%)] claimed that the limitation of resources was directly used for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. The frequency of difficulty in the provision of essential clinical services varied between 77% and 98.7% for different services. More than half of the study participants reported that they had encountered difficulty in the provision of clinical care on a daily or weekly basis. Regarding rationing strategies, isolating COVID-19 treatment units and limiting admission were the most frequent rationing strategies used by two-thirds of health workers on a daily or weekly basis. Conclusion Front-line health workers encountered numerous ethically challenging situations during COVID-19. More than half of health workers reported that they encountered ethical challenges in rationing the resources and delivery of different clinical services such as family planning services, maternal and childcare, immunization, and chronic care. With limited resources such as ventilators and hospital beds, healthcare providers have been faced with the difficult task of deciding who gets access to these resources and who doesn't. Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous ethical challenges for healthcare providers, highlighting the importance of ethical considerations in healthcare delivery. By being aware of these dilemmas and having policies in place to address them, healthcare providers can ensure that they are providing the best possible care to their patients while upholding ethical standards. (shrink)

BackgroundMoral dilemmas have arisen concerning whether physicians and other providers should treat patients who have declined COVID vaccination and are now sick with this disease. Several ethicists have argued that clinicians have obligations to treat such patients, yet providing care to these patients has distressed clinicians, who have at times declined to do so. Critical questions thus emerge regarding how best to proceed.Main bodyProviders face moral tensions: whether to place the benefits to an unvaccinated patient over their duties (...) to protect themselves and their families, staff and other patients, and goals of working collaboratively with patients. Clinicians’ duties to treat such patients arguably outweigh claims otherwise, but these obligations are creating moral conflict and distress for providers. Moral distress has been associated with burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder, and interpersonal and work difficulties. Given ongoing vaccine refusals, these problems are unlikely to disappear in the foreseeable future. Society has obligations to address this moral distress due to principles of reciprocity, and implicit social contracts, as part of which physicians risk their lives in caring for patients for the good of society as a whole. Responses are thus urgently needed at several levels: by hospitals, medical schools, professional societies, governments, media, providers and patients. Medical training on professionalism should address these stresses, probing why doctors have duties to treat these patients, but also how moral conflicts can ensue, and how best to address these tensions. Governments and institutions should thus alter relevant policies and devote more resources to addressing clinicians’ psychological strains. Institutions should also improve organizational culture. Public health organizations and the media described clinicians, earlier in the pandemic, as heroes, committed to treating COVID patients. This narrative should now be changed to highlight the strains that unvaccinated patients cause—endangering hospital staff and others.ConclusionsUnvaccinated COVID patients should receive care, but multi-level strategies, involving enhanced policies, education and practice are vital to alleviate ensuing moral distress, and thus aid these clinicians and their patients. Ethical arguments that providers must treat these patients have not considered these obligations’ effects on clinicians, but should do so. (shrink)

Government lockdowns, school closures, mass unemployment, health and wealth inequality. Political Philosophy in a Pandemic asks us, where do we go from here? What are the ethics of our response to a radically changed, even more unequal society, and how do we seize the moment for enduring change? Addressing the moral and political implications of pandemic response from states and societies worldwide, the 20 essays collected here cover the most pressing debates relating to the biggest public health crisis in (...) the last century. Discussing the pandemic in five key parts covering social welfare, economic justice, democratic relations, speech and misinformation, and the relationship between justice and crisis, this book reflects the fruitful combination of political theory and philosophy in laying the theoretical and practical foundations for justice in the long-term. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on every aspect of our social, cultural and commercial lives, including the world of sport. This book examines the ethical and philosophical dimensions of the intersection of COVID-19 and sport. The book goes beyond simple description of the impact of the pandemic on sport to offer normative judgments about how the sporting world responded to challenges posed by COVID-19, as well as philosophical speculation as to how COVID-19 will change (...) our understanding and appreciation of sport in the long term. It examines the considerations that either influenced - or arguably should have influenced - decisions to continue or to resume the playing of organized sport in the midst of a pandemic. As a part of this analysis, a spotlight is shone on how sport intersected with political issues surrounding COVID-19. It also explores the configuration and meaning of sport in the COVID-19 era, touching on themes such as the nature of sport, and its integrity, and sport's relationship to technology. Other themes include the changed nature of spectatorship, suffering in sport during pandemic times, and the impact of COVID-19 on the Olympic and Paralympic Games. A final chapter looks ahead and asks what sport might look like in a post-COVID world. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the ethics and philosophy of sport, the sociology of sport, event studies, politics or public health. (shrink)

The authors of this insightful and urgent collection both use the metaphor of evil as a virus or contagion and conceptualize the COVID-19 virus as a manifestation of evil to reconsider the purpose of philosophy in and for a pandemic.

The paper analyses John Stuart Mill’s harm principle and its proper application in the process of drafting and evaluating laws, political decisions, and measures used to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. By interpreting Mill as an epistemic democrat and an epistemic liberal, the paper focuses on Mill’s thoughts regarding the decision-making procedures appropriate for legislation in a pandemic. Additionally, it discusses the proper division of epistemic and political labor, one of the most important mechanisms Mill uses to filter the (...) public will, and demonstrates how Mill’s arguments can help us balance between epistemic and moral virtues, i.e. between democratic and expert-oriented decision-making. (shrink)

The ongoing efforts to explain the disease COVID-19 and the parallel efforts to devise and implement public health measures that mitigate it, are an opportunity to reconsider the values of science as identified to Merton. What is revealed is that science is always partial and always tentative. This leaves much scope for magical thinking and for flat science denial.

This chapter argues that, sometimes, disabled bioethicists actually have a duty to do public philosophy. It contends that this duty can be justified with ethical, epistemic, and prudential reasons. Any triage protocol will discriminate against disabled people if one uses a broadly inclusive definition of disability that subsumes diseases or chronic illnesses that can be disabling in their effects, like cancer or kidney failure. The most obvious reasons justifying a duty to do public philosophy as a disabled bioethicist (...) are ethical. One example of this testimonial injustice vis à vis disability and well‐being occurred during the early days of the COVID‐19 pandemic when medical triage protocols were being developed to ration critical care resources. Discriminatory triage protocols also diminish a disabled person's autonomy. The COVID‐19 pandemic amplified these costs in many ways but also created an opportunity for philosophical reflection that demonstrates the importance of more public‐facing work. (shrink)

Many microbes responsible for infectious diseases are known to run an asymptomatic course in a significant portion of the population. By highlighting the conceptual complexities of host-microbe interactions, this paper elucidates the fact that while many infections remain asymptomatic, this does not necessarily mean that such infections are of no concern for health. The paper builds on the so-called damage-response framework and considers several developments required to gain a more comprehensive perspective on infections and their relationship to diseases. Irrespective of (...) their (short-term) clinical manifestation, infections leave an imprint with consequences for health. Finally, these considerations regarding host-microbe interactions must be incorporated into policy decisions and public understanding of health if we hope to handle future pandemics such as Covid-19 better. (shrink)

Purpose. The article is aimed to study the anthropological, socio-philosophical and philosophical-legal dimensions of the ontological sphere of human life within the discourse of restricting human rights during pandemic threats. To do this, one should solve a number of tasks, among which are the following: 1) to explore the anthropological and praxeological understanding of fear as a primary component of human existence in a pandemic, which prevents people from changing their lives for the better and healthier, having fun and happiness; (...) 2) to put a focus on the habituation of fear as a two-dimensional adaptation to risks and threats from pandemics; 3) to reflect the anthropological features of changes in human life experience under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the discourse of human rights and public health measures. Theoretical basis. Today, international guiding principles on human rights response to global natural threats have been updated. However, there are still no specific legal recommendations concerning measures on human rights protection during outbreaks of various infectious diseases. However, the influence of unexpected global challenges causes a change in the anthropological component of society and the state, so it requires immediate comprehensive research. Originality. It was substantiated a systematic approach to the implementation of modern healthcare policy towards the recognition of human life as the highest value, increasing the level of psychological preparedness for pandemic challenges and approximation of statutory provisions of human rights protection to modern challenges and threats to the health of the individual, society and state. The study of anthropological, socio-philosophical and philosophical-legal dimensions of human existence in the discourse of pandemic threats made it possible to reveal the profound influence of fear on human life, social justice and, consequently, identify the moral and legal dependence of the development level of society and the state on the level of axiological and anthropological concept of human dignity. Conclusions. Based on the study of statistical reports, international analysis and the use of personal authorial methods, the following can be stated: the methods of combating the modern pandemic have directly affected everyone on national and international level. Their influence is significant because it changes the rules of coexistence and life of people in all spheres. However, the influence on the consciousness and other intentions of the individual has mostly temporally insignificant limits. (shrink)

Should research projects involving epidemiological modelling be subject to ethical scrutiny and peer review prior to publication? Mathematical modelling had considerable impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to social distancing and lockdowns. Imperial College conducted research leading to the website publication of a paper, Report 9, on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and COVID-19 mortality demand dated 16th March 2020, arguing for a Government policy of non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. lockdowns, social distancing, mask wearing, working from home, furlough, school closures, reduced (...) family interaction etc.) to counter COVID 19. Enquiries and Freedom of Information requests to the institution indicate that there was no formal ethical committee review of this specific research, nor was there any peer review prior to their online publication of Report 9. This paper considers the duties placed upon researchers, institutions and research funders under the UK ‘Concordat to Support Research Integrity’ (CSRI), across various bioethical domains, and whether ethical committee scrutiny should be required for this research. (shrink)

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English. 本文回顧及討論2021年1月至2022年4月COVID-19疫情期間香港抗疫中曾在公共領域提出或引起關注的倫理問題。新型的傳染病是複雜和具有不確定的挑戰，COVID-19全球大流行引起的倫理問題有普世的性質，但亦必須結合本地具體的情況討論。作者對其中的倫理焦點提出觀察分析，包括接種COVID-19疫苗的知情同意程序及其局限性，以及為精神上無行為能力的老年人接種疫 苗決定的特殊挑戰。 This article reviews and discusses ethical issues that emerged in the public realm in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong, between January 2021 and March 2022. Emerging infectious diseases are complex and bring about uncertain challenges. Although many of the ethical issues during the pandemic were universally experienced, it is important to understand them within the local contexts in which they arose. (...) The paper reports on observations related to some of these ethical issues, namely, the process of informed consent for COVID-19 vaccination and its limitations, and the challenge of arriving at vaccination decisions for mentally incapacitated elders. (shrink)

COVID-19 has created new opportunities for tech companies to supply the world with technological solutions intended to help individuals, communities, and nations maintain normalcy in the midst of disease, death, and destruction. Technologies such as virtual meeting software, coronavirus monitoring apps, and air filtration systems raise the question of whether our technological resiliency is not only helping us to maintain life as it was before, but also preventing us from asking whether we should maintain life as it was (...) before. By comparing Sartre’s analysis of what it was like to live during the Nazi occupation of Paris to current attempts to live during the pandemic, this article investigates how the technological solutions that maintain ordinary life in the midst of catastrophe should lead us to question the catastrophic nature of what we take to be ordinary life. (shrink)

Introduction -- I. Participer à l'événement une expérience à double tranchant -- II. Généraliser l'urgence? : le tournant de la pandémie -- III. Agir dans la durée -- Conclusion.

COVID-19 is not only a health emergency but also a strategic challenge for any politics of resistance, struggle and transformation. Understanding the social and political dynamics associated with morbidity and mortality and the many ‘ecologies of disease’ associated with the pandemic is necessary if we want to think beyond the limits of the lockdown strategy. It is here that the possibility of a democratic biopolitics emerges as part of a broader strategy for communism.