Article Text
Abstract
The pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 has led to unprecedented changes to society, causing unique problems that call for extraordinary solutions. We consider one such extraordinary proposal: ‘safer infection sites’ that would offer individuals the opportunity to be intentionally infected with SARS-CoV-2, isolate, and receive medical care until they are no longer infectious. Safer infection could have value for various groups of workers and students. Health professionals place themselves at risk of infection daily and extend this risk to their family members and community. Similarly, other essential workers who face workplace exposure must continue their work, even if have high-risk household members and live in fear of infecting. When schools are kept closed because of the fear that they will be sites of significant transmission, children and their families are harmed in multiple ways and college students who are living on campus, whether or not they are attending classes in person, are contributing to high rates of transmission and experiencing high rates of exposure. We consider whether offering safer infection sites to these groups could be ethically defensible and identify the empirical unknowns that would need to resolve before reaching definitive conclusions. This article is not an endorsement of intentional infection with the coronavirus, but rather is meant to spark conversation on the ethics of out-of-the-box proposals. Perhaps most meaningfully, our paper explores the value of control and peace of mind for those among us most impacted by the pandemic: those essential workers risking the most to keep us safe.
- ethics
- health workforce
- occupational health
- education
- children
This article is made freely available for use in accordance with BMJ’s website terms and conditions for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic or until otherwise determined by BMJ. You may use, download and print the article for any lawful, non-commercial purpose (including text and data mining) provided that all copyright notices and trade marks are retained.
https://bmj.com/coronavirus/usageStatistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors All authors contributed to the development, research and writing of this project.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Physical activity and risk of infection, severity and mortality of COVID-19: a systematic review and non-linear dose–response meta-analysis of data from 1 853 610 adults
- Behaviors, symptoms, and outcomes of North American patients with autoimmune hepatitis during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Temporal variations in the severity of COVID-19 illness by race and ethnicity
- Hospital admissions linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adolescents: cohort study of 3.2 million first ascertained infections in England
- Acute covid-19 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children
- Risk of severe illness from COVID-19 in patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease and increased fibrosis scores
- SARS-CoV-2 infections in pediatric and young adult recipients of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy: an international registry report
- Uneventful case of COVID-19 in a kidney transplant recipient
- 2021 Southern Medical Research Conference
- Physical activity and the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, severe COVID-19 illness and COVID-19 related mortality in South Korea: a nationwide cohort study