RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Passport to freedom? Immunity passports for COVID-19
JF Journal of Medical Ethics
JO J Med Ethics
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 652
OP 659
DO 10.1136/medethics-2020-106365
VO 46
IS 10
A1 Brown, Rebecca C H
A1 Savulescu, Julian
A1 Williams, Bridget
A1 Wilkinson, Dominic
YR 2020
UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/46/10/652.abstract
AB The COVID-19 pandemic has led a number of countries to introduce restrictive ‘lockdown’ policies on their citizens in order to control infection spread. Immunity passports have been proposed as a way of easing the harms of such policies, and could be used in conjunction with other strategies for infection control. These passports would permit those who test positive for COVID-19 antibodies to return to some of their normal behaviours, such as travelling more freely and returning to work. The introduction of immunity passports raises a number of practical and ethical challenges. In this paper, we seek to review the challenges relating to various practical considerations, fairness issues, the risk to social cooperation and the impact on people’s civil liberties. We make tentative recommendations for the ethical introduction of immunity passports.