RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Does Zero-COVID neglect health disparities?
JF Journal of Medical Ethics
JO J Med Ethics
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 169
OP 172
DO 10.1136/medethics-2021-107763
VO 48
IS 3
A1 Nancy S Jecker
A1 Derrick K S Au
YR 2022
UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/48/3/169.abstract
AB Since the World Health Organization (WHO) first declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic, diverse strategies have emerged to address it. This paper focuses on two leading strategies, elimination and mitigation, and examines their ethical basis. Elimination or ‘Zero-COVID’ dominates policies in Pacific Rim societies. It sets as a goal zero deaths and seeks to contain transmission using stringent short-term lockdowns, followed by strict find, test, trace and isolate methods. Mitigation, which dominates in the US and most European nations, sets targets for community transmission and lifts restrictions once targets are met. This approach takes calculated risks and regards a certain amount of disease and death as ethically justified. Section I examines different societal responses to risk that underlie these different policy approaches. Section II focuses on ethical arguments favouring Zero-COVID and raises health equity objections. Section III proposes a long-term strategy that balances the twin goals of promoting population health and health equity.There are no data available for this work.