Page - 433 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

CHAPTER D-10 Weighing Public Health and Mental Health Responses to Non-Compliance with Public Health Directives in the Context of Mental Illness Jennifer A. Chandler,* Yasmin Khaliq,** Mona Gupta,*** Kwame McKenzie,**** Simon Hatcher,***** and Olivia Lee****** Abstract COVID-19 has highlighted and reinforced the vulnerability of mul- tiple populations, including people who live with mental illness. Challenges are posed by the requirements for physical distancing and self-isolation. Mental illness does not automatically render a person incapable of adopting such measures or their decisions not to do so suspect. People with mental illnesses may decide not to follow public health directives just as other people without mental illness may choose to do, and public health enforcement measures would apply. In some cases, symptoms of mental illness do affect a person’s * Full Professor of Law and holder of the Bertram Loeb Research Chair at the University of Ottawa. ** Currently studying in the Programme de common law en français at the University of Ottawa. *** Psychiatrist at the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) and Clinician-Investigator at the Centre de recherche du CHUM; Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Addictions of the Université de Montréal. **** CEO of Wellesley Institute and an international expert on the social causes of mental illness, suicide, and the development of effective, equitable health sys- tems; Director of Health Equity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. ***** Full Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa. ****** Resident physician, University of Ottawa, Department of Psychiatry.