ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic broke out at the end of 2019 and throughout 2020 there were intensive international efforts to find a vaccine for the disease, which has already led to the deaths of over 6 million people. In December 2020, several pharmaceutical companies announced that they had succeeded in producing an effective vaccine and after approval by the various regulatory bodies, countries started to vaccinate their citizens. With the start of the global campaign to vaccinate the world's population against COVID-19, there was a strong renewal of the debate about prioritizing the population for the vaccination. This article presents the moral approaches to this issue and their consequences.
ABSTRACT
In March 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and there was a worldwide race to find an effective drug and/or vaccine. I present the Jewish ethical approach to two quandaries facing researchers: What is the acceptable degree of risk to the sick and to the healthy volunteers who participate in tests of an experimental vaccine? Is it permissible for a healthy person to volunteer for clinical trials? My conclusions are that a higher degree of risk is permissible in life-threatening situations, and it is right and proper that healthy people may volunteer even it involves exposing themselves to danger. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Theology & Science is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
Countless contracts have been undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 as well as government orders to contain it. Flights have been canceled, concerts have been called off, and dorms have been closed, just to name a few. Do these all count as breaches of contract-or are the parties excused due to the extraordinary circumstances? And how should the losses be allocated between the parties? The law provides one set of answers to these questions; ethics offers another. With a focus on American law (developed over the past two centuries) and Jewish ethics (developed over millennia), this paper shows that the two systems are in accord with some respects and differ in others: Both law and Jewish ethics would excuse a party who cannot complete his contract due to a force beyond his control, like the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet Jewish ethics would require that the excused party still be paid, while American law would not.
ABSTRACT
Doctors have been treating infectious diseases for hundreds of years, but the risk they and other medical professionals are exposed to in an epidemic has always been high. At the front line of the present war against COVID-19, medical teams are endangering their lives as they continue to treat patients suffering from the disease. What is the degree of danger that a medical team must accept in the face of a pandemic? What are the theoretical justifications for these risks? This article offers answers to these questions by citing opinions based on Jewish ethical thought that has been formulated down through the ages. According to Jewish ethics, the obligation to assist and care for patients is based on many commandments found in the Bible and on rulings in the Responsa literature. The ethical challenge is created when treating the sick represents a real existential danger to the caregivers and their families. This consideration is relevant for all dangerous infectious diseases and particularly for the coronavirus that has struck around the world and for which there is as yet no cure. Many rabbis over the years have offered the religious justifications for healing in a general sense and especially in cases of infectious diseases as they have a bearing on professional and communal obligations. They have compared the ethical expectations of doctors to those of soldiers but have not sanctioned taking risks where there is insufficient protection or where there is a danger to the families of the medical professionals.