COVID-19 (Page 35)

Spitzi-Foto/Shutterstock COVID is surging in some European countries. In response, Austria and Russia are planning to reimpose lockdowns, but only for the unvaccinated. Is this ethical? Some countries already have vaccine passport schemes to travel or enter certain public spaces. The passports treat those who have had vaccines – or have evidence of recent infection – differently from those who have not had a vaccine. But the proposed selective lockdowns would radically increase the scope of restrictions for the unvaccinated. Lockdowns can be ethically justified where they are necessary and proportionate to achieve an important public health benefit, even though they restrict individual freedoms. Whether selective lockdowns are justified, though, depends on what they are intended to achieve. One benefitContinue Reading

ImageFlow/Shutterstock Most people with COVID don’t end up in hospital, but some groups get a very severe form of the disease. As early as the first wave, it was clear that minority ethnic groups in the UK were more likely to die of COVID compared with white people. Part of this higher risk is down to socio-economic factors. For example, minority ethnic people in the UK are more likely to live in crowded areas compared with white people, and more likely to live in multi-generational households, so older people are more exposed to viruses carried by younger members of the family. They are also at higher risk because they are more likely to work in healthcare and care homes, whichContinue Reading

divedog/Shutterstock More than 18 months into the pandemic, we’re still hunting for effective antiviral treatments for COVID – medicines that target the coronavirus itself and stop it from developing in the body. So far we have only a handful of options. Remdesivir has been authorised for use, but the latest research shows it doesn’t improve outcomes for COVID patients, and so the World Health Organization has recommended it not be used. A new alternative, molnupiravir, will soon be available, but demand will be high. It could also be very expensive for some patients. So if we need alternative antivirals, where will we find them? Possibly in nature. It’s an outstanding hub for valuable natural compounds, and provided us with oneContinue Reading

New research from the US has shown that white-tailed deer are being infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans. Antibodies were found in 40% of deer that were tested from January to March 2021 across Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New York state. A second unpublished study has detected the virus in 80% of deer sampled in Iowa between November 2020 and January 2021. Such high levels of infection led the researchers to conclude that deer are actively transmitting the virus to one another. The scientists also identified different SARS-CoV-2 variants, suggesting there have been many human-to-deer infections. The large numbers of white-tailed deer in North America and the fact that they often live close to people provideContinue Reading

The success of medical research has been one of the few positives of the COVID pandemic. The effectiveness of vaccines in preventing deaths (see graph below), is particularly impressive given the short time in which they were developed. But if recent allegations from a whistleblower about a Pfizer vaccine trial can be proven, they would indicate that time and financial pressures may have led to serious misconduct. The whistleblower is Brook Jackson, previously a regional director at a Texas-based contract research organisation called Ventavia, who supplied an account to the BMJ. She alleges that Ventavia falsified data, “unblinded” patients (that is, researchers could see who was receiving the vaccine and who the placebo), employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slowContinue Reading

On December 1 1955, in Alabama, Rosa Parks broke the law. But Parks was no ordinary criminal trying to take advantage of others. She merely refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person and was arrested for this reason alone. Parks is a hero because she stood up, or rather sat down, for the rights of black people. Among other things, Parks taught us that we shouldn’t take the law too seriously, since a legal prohibition does not always imply a moral prohibition. In fact, there can be cases where we should actually do what the law forbids. But we can extend Parks’ lesson and add another scenario where we shouldn’t take the law tooContinue Reading