This book draws attention to the non-biological—political, economic, societal and cultural—variables shaping both the emergence and persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global response to it, with a particular focus on political decisionmakers’ role in the domestic and international politics surrounding the process of the pandemic. The book identifies the strategic and underlying ethical failures of decision making, using a process-tracing approach to reconstruct considerations, decisions and actions by key leaders—interested in thus weaving a global narrative of the response. The author highlights key speech acts, and interprets the causal implications embedded in a chronological and contextualised appraisal of events, statements and public health measures. The book further discusses the normative ethics of pandemic response, and presents lessons drawn from the present experience. It also offers a normative analysis taking into consideration pre-pandemic guidelines for response, including in the literature of public health ethics and pandemic preparedness plans.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought a broad range of ethical problems to the forefront, raising fundamental questions about the role of government in response to such outbreaks, the scarcity and allocation of health care resources, the unequal distribution of health risks and economic impacts, and the extent to which individual freedom can be restricted. In this clear introduction to the topic Iwao Hirose explores these ethical questions and analyzes the central issues in the ethics of pandemic response and preparedness such as: The general nature of pandemics and the ethics of preparedness Ethical questions about general goals of pandemic response and preparedness The distribution of scarce resources, for example, ventilators, hospital beds, antiviral drugs, and vaccines Restrictions on individual freedom Ethical questions in the wake of pandemics, including contact tracing, vaccine passports, and socioeconomic inequalities. With the use of real-life examples and a clear philosophical approach, The Ethics of Pandemics is a much-needed introduction to some of the most important ethical issues surrounding pandemics. It is essential reading for students of ethics, bioethics, and political philosophy and will also be of interest to those working in related areas such as public policy, public health, health law, nursing, and life sciences.

As nations race to hone contact-tracing efforts, the world's experts consider strategies for maximum transparency and impact. As public health professionals around the world work tirelessly to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is clear that traditional methods of contact tracing need to be augmented in order to help address a public health crisis of unprecedented scope. Innovators worldwide are racing to develop and implement novel public-facing technology solutions, including digital contact tracing technology. These technological products may aid public health surveillance and containment strategies for this pandemic and become part of the larger toolbox for future infectious outbreak prevention and control. As technology evolves in an effort to meet our current moment, Johns Hopkins Project on Ethics and Governance of Digital Contact Tracing Technologies—a rapid research and expert consensus group effort led by Dr. Jeffrey P. Kahn of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in collaboration with the university's Center for Health Security—carried out an in-depth analysis of the technology and the issues it raises. Drawing on this analysis, they produced a report that includes detailed recommendations for technology companies, policymakers, institutions, employers, and the public. The project brings together perspectives from bioethics, health security, public health, technology development, engineering, public policy, and law to wrestle with the complex interactions of the many facets of the technology and its applications. This team of experts from Johns Hopkins University and other world-renowned institutions has crafted clear and detailed guidelines to help manage the creation, implementation, and application of digital contact tracing. Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response is the essential resource for this fast-moving crisis. Contributors: Joseph Ali, JD; Anne Barnhill, PhD; Anita Cicero, JD; Katelyn Esmonde, PhD; Amelia Hood, MA; Brian Hutler, Phd, JD; Jeffrey P. Kahn, PhD, MPH; Alan Regenberg, MBE; Crystal Watson, DrPH, MPH; Matthew Watson; Robert Califf, MD, MACC; Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH; Divya Hosangadi, MSPH; Nancy Kass, ScD; Alain Labrique, PhD, MHS, MS; Deven McGraw, JD, MPH, LLM; Michelle Mello, JD, PhD; Michael Parker, BEd (Hons), MA, PhD; Stephen Ruckman, JD, MSc, MAR; Lainie Rutkow, JD, MPH, PhD; Josh Sharfstein, MD; Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA; Eric Toner, MD; Mar Trotochaud, MSPH; Effy Vayena, PhD; Tal Zarsky, JSD, LLM, LLB

This book contains original essays that look at contagious/infectious disease pandemics and the ethical public policy and administration these have entailed. In particular, the pandemics of the 1918 flu pandemic, HIV in the 1990s, SARS in 2003, Ebola from 2014–2016 and the novel COVID-19 in 2020 are highlighted. The contributions in this work offer the reader insights in these and several other recent pandemics that present differently—either via contagion or mortality rate—and how each should be addressed by countries of various sorts. This book is a must for the ongoing debate on how we should treat public health crises, such as the one we have all just encountered in the novel COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 Pandemic will be seen as having had a profound effect on how we live and work, as well its economic and health repercussions. But it also brought ethical issues and challenges into focus, from ‘Fake News’ to issues of individual freedom. This edited collection addresses these issues and others, including vaccine distribution, incentivization, administration, and mandates; the unprecedented challenges faced by healthcare workers; crisis communication and response conundrums: and societal burdens. This is a companion book to Ethical Implications of COVID-19 Management: Evaluating the Aftershock, also published by Ethics International Press.

This book addresses the many ethical issues and extraordinary risks that nurses and others are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, which creates physical, emotional, and economic burdens, affecting nurses' overall health and well-being. Nurses are essential front-line clinicians across all health care settings and in every nation. The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel SARs-CoV-2 virus has affected children, adults, and communities within and across all societies. Nurses, too, have contracted the virus and died from the disease. They have also seen their colleagues, family members, and friends hospitalized or in intensive care units struggling to survive. Nursing’s professionalism and disciplinary resolve to care for patients and families amidst confusion, misinformation, and shifting guidelines has been called “heroic” by the public. How much risk should nurses be expected to accept during a pandemic? How do nurses help patients and families find comfort and dignity at the end-of-life? How do we help nurses who are suffering from moral distress and mental health concerns from what they have seen, been asked to do, or are unable to provide? And, how does society move forward from a pandemic that has challenged our basic ethical principles of justice and what is “fair, good and right” in caring for those who need care, including the most vulnerable and nurses themselves? This book addresses these and other ethical concerns that nurses are facing in their day-to-day clinical practice; experiences shared with patients, families, and colleagues. Although this book was written while the pandemic was still raging across the United States and globally, the events needed to be told as they were unfolding. This book helps us to learn from both the successes and failures that are affecting so many across the globe, including those on whom the public relies on to provide quality, compassionate, and expert care when they are sick: nurses.

A portion of the revenue from this book’s sales will be donated to Doctors Without Borders to assist in the fight against COVID-19. The rapid spread of COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on modern health-care systems and has given rise to a number of complex ethical issues. This collection of readings and case studies offers an overview of some of the most pressing of these issues, such as the allocation of ventilators and other scarce resources, the curtailing of standard privacy measures for the sake of public health, and the potential obligations of health-care professionals to continue operating in dangerous work environments.