Page - 277 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

CHAPTER C-3 Should Immunity Licences be an Ingredient in our Policy Response to COVID-19? Daniel Weinstock* and Vardit Ravitsky** Abstract According to their advocates, immunity licences in the post- confinement phase of the COVID-19 pandemic should be granted to those who have been exposed to the virus and as a result have (presumably) devel- oped immunity. This would allow them to go back to work, engage in leisure activities, and travel. Those who are in favour of such licences argue that the ability of some to return to work would be of benefit to all. Opponents of the proposal point to their lack of scientific basis, to the perverse incentives that their introduction might generate, and to the risk that they might exacerbate existing inequalities. But should we consider them as wrong per se, that is, independent of the nega- tive consequences that they might produce in present circumstances, consequences that might be neutralized by scientific advances and by an appropriate regulatory apparatus? They would still be morally defi- cient because they violate the principle of “least infringement” relative to the value of equality. Reorganizing the spaces in which we work and play, and create is one way in which the task of emerging from confine- ment safely could be accomplished in a more egalitarian manner. * Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy, Faculty of Law and Faculty of Arts, McGill University. ** Full Professor, Bioethics Program, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Université de Montréal.