THE THIRD ETHICAL COMMENTARY TO COVID-19 (two years later) - VACCINATION, SOLIDARITY, AND TRUST

The systematic monitoring of ethical contents and events related to COVID-19 pandemic, carried out over the last two years, serves to develop a multi-professional discussion on one of the most relevant platforms - Russian Journal Infection and Immunity. Two previous articles consistently presented the moral context of historically established regulatory and epidemiological paradigms and the analysis of readiness/unwillingness to follow them in the real-life conditions during the epidemic crisis. The contemporary moral cross-section of the pandemic, characterized by the state of global loss of values of social unity, trust and solidarity leaves virtually no doubt about the dominant role of ethics as a criterion for resolving conflicts of interest. The point of the peak moral tension was vaccine prevention at all levels of its introduction into an effective resource for containing COVID-19. According to the authors' personal and professional responsibility, based on long-term scientific research of vaccination-related ethics, embodied in the books Ethics of Infectious Pathology (2014) and Ethics of Vaccination (Criterion of Scientific and Humanitarian Breakthrough (2018), account for our interest in writing this paper. In the Third Ethical Commentary presented to the readers the two ideologically related tasks have been set. First, to consider the ethically verified canon of vaccine prevention specifically exemplified by COVID-19 pandemic. Second, to expand the scope in the discussion of the ethics role by connecting the vaccination in the context of a regional cluster, namely the CIS member states. This opportunity took place owing the long-term cooperation to create ethical evaluation system within the framework of the WHO project Forum of Ethics Committees in the Commonwealth of Independent States (FECCIS) and the practice of developing model laws in the field of social policy and human rights of the IPA CIS. The perspective focus of this work is the need for an innovative approach to develop management decisions by enlarging the interdisciplinary range and expanding the areas of responsibility of social and bioethical meaning while protecting public health in epidemic crisis.

THE THIRD ETHICAL COMMENTARY TO COVID-19 (two years later) — VACCINATION, SOLIDARITY, AND TRUST

The systematic monitoring of ethical contents and events related to COVID-19 pandemic, carried out over the last two years, serves to develop a multi-professional discussion on one of the most relevant platforms — Russian Journal Infection and Immunity. Two previous articles consistently presented the moral context of historically established regulatory and epidemiological paradigms and the analysis of readiness/unwillingness to follow them in the real-life conditions during the epidemic crisis. The contemporary moral cross-section of the pandemic, characterized by the state of global loss of values of social unity, trust and solidarity leaves virtually no doubt about the dominant role of ethics as a criterion for resolving conflicts of interest. The point of the peak moral tension was vaccine prevention at all levels of its introduction into an effective resource for containing COVID-19. According to the authors’ personal and professional responsibility, based on long-term scientific research of vaccination-related ethics, embodied in the books Ethics of Infectious Pathology (2014) and Ethics of Vaccination (Criterion of Scientific and Humanitarian Breakthrough (2018), account for our interest in writing this paper. In the Third Ethical Commentary presented to the readers the two ideologically related tasks have been set. First, to consider the ethically verified canon of vaccine prevention specifically exemplified by COVID-19 pandemic. Second, to expand the scope in the discussion of the ethics role by connecting the vaccination in the context of a regional cluster, namely the CIS member states. This opportunity took place owing the long-term cooperation to create ethical evaluation system within the framework of the WHO project Forum of Ethics Committees in the Commonwealth of Independent States (FECCIS) and the practice of developing model laws in the field of social policy and human rights of the IPA CIS. The perspective focus of this work is the need for an innovative approach to develop management decisions by enlarging the interdisciplinary range and expanding the areas of responsibility of social and bioethical meaning while protecting public health in epidemic crisis.