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Just as in normal times, equity concerns related to the pandemic
are not only related to access to health care when people are sick with
COVID-19 or to claims of new discoveries such as vaccines. We care
about equity or fairness in multiple dimensions of health, includ-
ing the causes, levels, distribution patterns, health consequences,
non-health consequences, health care experiences, differences in
outcomes, and even how the dead are treated. The difference is that
during epidemics and pandemics, the aim of containing infections
seemingly dominates any other considerations of equity in health or
other social domains. In normal times, this would be like pursuing
policies to maximize health outcomes above all other considerations.
Such a position is unacceptable because maximizing health outcomes
is not the only equity goal within health care, nor is it the only equity
concern across all social domains. Ethics and equity concerns are not
novel to infectious disease control; we do not cull human beings like
we might a herd of farm animals when infections start to spread.
However, equity has not been a foremost concern or as prominent as
it needs to be.
Vulnerability and Equity
In most countries, even when the infections may be starting to get
under control, the national responses to control the COVID-19 pan-
demic have been negatively affecting the health and well-being of
individuals and groups, and making health inequalities worse.7 This
is true even in countries where the pandemic looks as if it is being
managed well. Importantly, the harmful impacts of both the infections
and national responses are not being distributed evenly or randomly.
Instead, the negative impacts are most visible among the most socially
disadvantaged, and they are likely to track and make the extant socio-
economic gradient in health worse in all countries.8 And while stan-
dard measurement tools are able to capture health outcomes and
other social and economic facts, the uneven increase in vulnerability
to diverse harms is less measurable—but it is visible. Vulnerability
to harms of individuals and groups is a coherent concept; it is akin
7. Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, “The Great Lockdown Is Saving Lives While Increasing
Poverty and Hunger Globally”, Forbes (28 April 2020), online: <www.forbes.
com/sites/yuwahedrickwong/2020/04/28/the-great-lockdown-is-saving-lives-
while-increasing-poverty-and-hunger-globally/>.
8. Marmot, supra note 6.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Titel
- VULNERABLE
- Untertitel
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Autoren
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Verlag
- Ottawa Press
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Abmessungen
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Seiten
- 648
- Kategorien
- Coronavirus
- International