How Well Do Religious Exemptions Apply to Mandates for COVID-19 Vaccines?

In the United States, religious exemptions to health-driven mandates enjoy, and should enjoy, protected status in medical ethics and healthcare law. Religious exemptions are defined as seriously professed exceptions to state or federal laws, which appeal to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, allowing workers to request an exception to a job requirement, including a health-protective mandate, if it "conflicts with their sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observances". In medical ethics, such religious exceptions are usually justified on the basis of the principle of autonomy, where personally held convictions, reflected in scripture or established religious norms, are safeguarded on the basis of the first amendment, thereby constituting an important area in which societal good must yield to individual liberty. Acknowledging the longstanding category of "religious exemptions", and referencing some examples that adhere to its parameters in good faith (e.g., objections made by some institutions to HPV vaccines), I argue that, to date, no coherent basis for religious exemptions to COVID-19 vaccines has been offered through appeal to the principle of autonomy, or, in a healthcare context, to "medical freedom". Indeed, proponents of characterizing these exemptions as legitimate misconstrue autonomy and abuse the reputation of the religious traditions they invoke in defense of their endeavors to opt out. The upshot is not only an error in interpreting the principle of autonomy, whereby it is issued a "blank check", but also a dishonesty in itself whereby a contested political position becomes deliberately disguised as a protected religious value. "Sincerely held beliefs", I conclude, appear no longer to constitute the standard for religious accommodation in the era of COVID-19. Individual declaration, seemingly free of any reasonable constraint, does. This is a shift that has serious consequences for public health and, more broadly, the public good.

Herd culture and herd immunity

Although communicable diseases affect our bodies, they occur in a society that interprets and gives them meaning. Herd immunity provides the body protection;however, long-term protection requires shifts in the way people interpret and respond to disease, cultural transformation that enables the development of the knowledge, habits and skills that make herd immunity feasible and sustainable. Herd culture allows individuals to protect themselves and restrict their liberty in order to protect others;it is a form of exercising positive liberty and a necessary complement to herd immunity in a democratic society. Key words Herd immunity, Herd culture, COVID-19, Liberty, Cultural changeAlternate :Resumen Aunque las enfermedades transmisibles afectan nuestros cuerpos, ocurren en una sociedad que las interpreta y dota de significado, y cuyos individuos causan o evitan. La inmunidad de rebaño permite lograr una protección del cuerpo, sin embargo, para su sustentabilidad, se requiere de cambios en la manera cómo las personas interpretan y responden a la enfermedad, de transformaciones culturales que permitan desarrollar conocimientos, hábitos y destrezas que hagan factible y sostenible la inmunidad de rebaño. La cultura de rebaño permite a los individuos protegerse y restringir su libertad para proteger a los demás, es una forma de ejercicio de la libertad positiva y el complemento necesario de la inmunidad del rebaño en la sociedad democrática.Palabras clave:Inmunidad de rebaño;Cultura de rebaño;COVID-19;Libertad;Cambios culturales

Migrants and Safety in Serbia during and after Coronavirus Pandemic

The removal of internal borders and the establishment of freedom of movement are important aspects of the EU's history, but they are not accompanied by a uniform legal system. The migrant dilemma isn't going away, and the pattern and character of these movements have evolved dramatically over the previous six decades. The author of this article addresses the issue of migrants' position in Serbia's rural areas during the coronavirus pandemic. During the period of emergency, Serbia enacted policies that imprisoned migrants in detention centres, effectively depriving them of their liberty. According to the government's reasoning, it was done to protect migrants' health. Given the rising violence between migrants and the local people, the question is whether the state intended to safeguard migrants' health or citizens from migrants in this manner. The author conducted a survey in these areas, explains the findings in depth, and draws a conclusion based on his findings. The paper is comprised of several units. In the first place, the author briefly explains the state of emergency in Serbia and gives an overview of migration centers in Serbia. The central part of this paper deals with the research between citizens in relation to migrants, both in their general attitude and in terms of the relationship between migrants and crime. Residents of migrants' areas were surveyed, as the author believed thought that due to the location of migration centres, they would be most affected by waves of migrants and possibly, crimes committed by migrants. The author set two initial hypotheses and both were confirmed, and according to the research, the population has a negative attitude towards migrants. At the same time, most respondents show distrust of the state's claim that migrants are imprisoned for their health. The author believes that this move by the state at that time was a hasty reaction in order to prevent the uncontrolled movement of migrants and the potential spread of the infectious coronavirus disease. In the same time, the author tries to answer to the question about the migrants' position today and in the near future.

Adam Smith Reconsidered: History, Liberty, and the Foundations of Modern Politics: by Paul Sagar, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 248 pp, ISBN: 9780691210834, Publication Date: 2022

Smith, argues Sagar, is more concerned with politics than morality, his work attuned to political struggles generating our ways of life and value orders. It remains commonplace to meet academics who still view Adam Smith as an egoist, a theorist of self-interest. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Perspectives on Political Science is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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.)

Health, privacy and liberty: a call for digital governance during (and after) the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the development and use of technology by increasing the use of previously existing technological resources, such as maps identifying population movements;assigning new uses to previously existing technological mechanisms, such as the use of facial recognition for monitoring infected people;and encouraging the development of new technologies, such as apps that ascribe risk codes to citizens. Without these digital measures, the pandemic would probably continue to expand, or, alternatively, entire populations would have to be quarantined for months (or even years), with significant consequences arising from either scenario. Technologies provide tools to avoid those scenarios. However, digital measures come at a price to our rights, namely our rights to privacy and liberty. Precautions and limitations ought to be imposed on the use of these technologies, forming a code of digital governance for COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Human Rights 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 abstract 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 abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On the voluntariness of public health apps: a European case study on digital contact tracing

As evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing reliance on smartphone apps such as digital contact tracing apps and vaccination passports to respond to and mitigate public health threats. In light of the European Commission's guidance, Member States typically offer such apps on a voluntary, ‘opt-in' basis. In this paper, we question the extent to which the individual choice to use these apps–and similar future technologies–is indeed a voluntary one. By explicating ethical and legal considerations governing the choice situations surrounding the use of smartphone apps, specifically those related to the negative consequences that declining the use of these apps may have (e.g. loss of opportunities, social exclusion, stigma), we argue that the projected downsides of refusal may in effect limit the liberty to decline for certain subpopulations. To mitigate these concerns, we recommend three categories of approaches that may be employed by governments to safeguard voluntariness. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

LIBERTY AND ITS EXCEPTIONS

Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights enshrines the right to liberty, one of the oldest and most fundamental rights in the human rights tradition, and one of the core rights in the Convention. Central to the judicial understanding of Article 5 is the 'exhaustive justification principle': unlike with other rights, such as the right to privacy, interferences with liberty can only be justified by one of the specific reasons listed in Article 5 itself. This article shows that this rigidity has posed problems in practice: faced with modern developments unforeseeable at the time of the Convention's writing, such as the use of novel policing techniques and the COVID-19 pandemic, judges have interpreted Article 5 in an unusual and artificial way, sacrificing the exhaustive justification principle in doing so, in order to achieve sensible outcomes. The integrity of Article 5 has been threatened, with serious consequences for the future protection of the right to liberty. This trend is explained, evidenced and evaluated, and some (partial) solutions and concessions are considered. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s).

Accountability, emergency and liberty during COVID-19 in the UK 2020–22

Purpose: The study explains why Parliamentarians in the United Kingdom (UK) focused on accountability through data during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as on how data could be used to improve the government's response to the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: Understanding the implications of accountability for COVID-19 is crucial to understanding how governments should respond to future pandemics. This article provides an account of what a select committee in the UK thought were the essential elements of these accountability relationships. To do so, the authors use a neo-Roman concept of liberty to show how Parliamentary oversight of the pandemic for accountability was crucial to maintaining the liberty of citizens during the crisis and to identify what lessons need to be learnt for future crises. Findings: The study shows that Parliamentarians were concerned that the UK government was not meeting its obligations to report openly about the COVID-19 pandemic to them. It shows that the government did make progress in reporting during the pandemic but further advancements need to be made in future for restrictions to be compatible with the protection of liberty. Research limitations/implications: The study extends the concept of neo-Roman liberty showing how it is relevant in an emergency situation and provides an account of why accountability is necessary for the preservation of liberty when the government uses emergency powers. Practical implications: Governments and Parliaments need to think about how they preserve liberty during crises through enhanced accountability mechanisms and the publication of data. Originality/value: The study extends previous work on liberty and calculation, providing a theorisation of the role of numbers in the protection of liberty. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF CHILDREN DEPRIVED OF LIBERTY IN DETENTION CENTRES IN MALAYSIA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

The spread of the Covid-19 virus that initially surfaced in China in late 2019 eventually emerged as a global pandemic which adversely affected the worldwide population, including Malaysia. Consequently, the Malaysian government implemented many social and public health measures to help control the spread of Covid-19 in the country. The Covid-19 pandemic affected every level of society in Malaysia, including children who are susceptible to being emotionally, psychologically, and mentally affected due to lockdown measures, school closures, and loss of employment suffered by family members.There is a gap in existing research concerning the impact of Covid-19 on children deprived of liberty in detention centres in Malaysia. Hence, this study aims to identify whether the legal framework in Malaysia adequately protects the rights of children deprived of liberty in detention centres, in line with the international legal framework. A qualitative research design was adopted to explore the issues surrounding the impact of Covid-19 on children in detention centres. Library-based research and semi-structured interviews were carried out with officers from detention centres and the Department of Social Welfare. This research demonstrates that sound policies and guidelines and the availability of fully trained staff are essential in meeting the emotional, physical, and mental needs of children in detention centres. This research is significant for policymakers to strengthen the current legal framework in order to afford better protection for children in detention centres, in line with the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development Policy (2021–2025) as well as the international legal framework. © 2023, UUM Journal of Legal Studies. All Rights Reserved.

Federalism's Fallacy at the Forefront of Public Health Law.

Amid undulating conceptions of the role and prowess of federalism emerges its central constitutional role: protecting American liberties against unwarranted governmental intrusions. To the extent that federalism is used as a guise for withdrawing fundamental rights to abortion by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, individual rights are sacrificed in contravention of constitutional structural norms.

"It was like you were being literally punished for getting sick": formerly incarcerated people's perspectives on liberty restrictions during COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has greatly impacted the health of incarcerated individuals in the US. The goal of this study was to examine perspectives of recently incarcerated individuals on greater restrictions on liberty to mitigate COVID-19 transmission. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured phone interviews from August through October 2021 with 21 people who had been incarcerated in Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities during the pandemic. Transcripts were coded and analyzed, using a thematic analysis approach. RESULTS: Many facilities implemented universal "lockdowns," with time out of the cell often limited to one hour per day, with participants reporting not being able to meet all essential needs such as showers and calling loved ones. Several study participants reported that repurposed spaces and tents created for quarantine and isolation provided "unlivable conditions." Participants reported receiving no medical attention while in isolation, and staff using spaces designated for disciplinary purposes (e.g., solitary housing units) for public health isolation purposes. This resulted in the conflation of isolation and discipline, which discouraged symptom reporting. Some participants felt guilty over potentially causing another lockdown by not reporting their symptoms. Programming was frequently stopped or curtailed and communication with the outside was limited. Some participants relayed that staff threatened to punish noncompliance with masking and testing. Liberty restrictions were purportedly rationalized by staff with the idea that incarcerated people should not expect freedoms, while those incarcerated blamed staff for bringing COVID-19 into the facility. CONCLUSIONS: Our results highlighted how actions by staff and administrators decreased the legitimacy of the facilities' COVID-19 response and were sometimes counterproductive. Legitimacy is key in building trust and obtaining cooperation with otherwise unpleasant but necessary restrictive measures. To prepare for future outbreaks facilities must consider the impact of liberty-restricting decisions on residents and build legitimacy for these decisions by communicating justifications to the extent possible.

COVID-19 pandemic and contagion laws and policies in international and national perspectives

There is a settled statute concerning health rights and qualifications in emergency and normalcy. The current dash of legal advancement addresses novelty in the comprehension of India's epidemic and disaster administration. India has crossed 43,144,820 positive cases and 524,525 deceased persons due to COVID-19 until May 26, 2022. India has never spent over 2% of its gross domestic product on medical services. The probability of a principal statute of general health under these conditions needs a new generation of public laws and policies. The pre-constitution vintage of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, contradicts Entry 29 of the accompanying rundown of the Constitution of India, 1950, and fighting the bordering nature of COVID-19 in India. Therefore an investigation into the legal approach to the scourge of pandemic in the global and national purview appears to be entrancing in extending our comprehension of contagion control, the State's role, and citizen's freedom. The privilege of health and life is a vital concern of the State, particularly amid pestilence and pandemics. The cross-country lockdown and COVID-19 have seen a progression of legal intervention in health rights and entitlement in broader goals of COVID-19 pandemic and contagion laws and policies in India. © 2022 Medical Journal of Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth ;Published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow.

[Vaccination against Covid19: between individual responsability and moral sense]. / La vaccination contre la COVID-19 : entre responsabilité individuelle et sens moral.

Vaccination against COVID-19, which began at the end of last year, promises to be one of the most passionate societal debates of the beginning of 2021. Should we force the population to vaccinate in the name of the civic duty to protect the most vulnerable among us? Should it still be left to the choice of the free and enlightened citizen, which guarantees the consequences it therefore evokes, in the name of what the Republic has most precious to offer: the freedom to choose and the equality of all in front of it? But where should this democratic freedom of action and decisions stop, as long as they must undermine the safety of the life course of some of us? Faced with this pandemic, who should decide who should live with the individuality defended by some or take the risk of peer contamination by refusing vaccination? This would make us lose then and together what we owe to ourselves, but above all what we owe to others: the sense of a certain consideration of human vulnerability, and respect for the precious price of life. The philosophy of freedom and the ethics of responsibility will help us to shed a certain humanist light on our individual and collective decisions that today herald the common plan for a shared future that concerns us all.

THE ETHICAL CONCERNS OF A PANDEMIC: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND OPINIONS OF THE INDIAN SITUATION IN COVID ERA

COVID-19 brought havoc in the world with its high infectivity and virulence. Many countries were caught unprepared in public health capacity and socio-economic parameters. In this trying time, public health ethics remain an unanswered question on many fronts of treatment and control of novel coronavirus. The objective of the paper is to analyse the significant ethical challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pre-defined thematic areas based on critical issues are identified to understand the ethical concerns of prevention and control of COVID-19. Secondary sources of literature have been consulted, and pieces of evidence gathered to strengthen the arguments. The article also provides a recommendation on ethical measures for the preservation of human dignity and ethical practices. The human rights aspects of regulations during the pandemic of the coronavirus are discussed to understand various nuances of justice and liberty.

Liberty or protection? Making law for employment and social security

Recent disruptions to the usual working conditions, such as the pandemic, highlight the insecurity of the minimum waged, casually employed working poor;they also point up the precarity of the heavily indebted, over-worked middle-class. Contrasting the cause of social protection with that of market liberty, this study examines the terms of the security debate to see how the cause of protection seeks to counter the cause of liberty. It reviews three recent regulatory events to see what success the cause of protection has had: the industrial relations reform process, the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the agenda setting for women’s economic security. It notes the reforms that the new Labor government proposes. The study recommends, if reforms are to be effective, the cause of protection must move beyond the particulars of the labour contract to address the structures of power in the political economy of law making. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Griffith Law Review is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd 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.)

Entre responsabilit? et libert? : la place fondamentale de l??thique en temps de crise

At the beginning of the second wave of COVID-19, on November 7, 2020, the conference ???Questions d?????thique??? was held at the Lieu Unique in Nantes (France). Prof. Axel Kahn???s presentation focused on the ethical perspective of the relations between information and media, researchers and clinical trials, individual liberty and health democracy, but also the urgency of care, patient triage and confinement. Starting from the indispensable character of ???ethics in times of crisis???, the title of his talk, he analyzed his practice through the prism of liberty and responsibility.

Zoomers: teaching American literature at the time of Covid-19

In May 2020, Giorgio Agamben, one the most influential Italian philosophers of his generation, wrote in a post published on the website of the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies that all those professors who would agree "to submit to the new telematic dictatorship and to teach their courses only online are the perfect equivalent of those university professors who in 1931 swore allegiance to the Fascist regime." Philosophers, as is well known, have cultivated the art of paradox since the time of Zeno. In a less apocalyptic vein than Agamben's post, in this essay I suggest that teachers and students involved in digital teaching and learning don't run the risk of turning into dangerous Blackshirts, but at worst they might turn into zoomanti (a neologism that could be roughly translated into English as "Zoomers," but also a word that for many Italian readers is evocative of the phrase "anime purganti," "the souls of Purgatory"). More specifically, drawing on my experience of teaching online classes in American literature at the University of Munich for three semesters in a row, I reflect on both the risks and opportunities arising from the radical reconfiguration of the relationship between knowledge production and technology triggered by the Covid pandemic.

Tuberculosis/COVID-19 co-infection detected in a single sputum sample using a rapid molecular test.

Tuberculosis (TB) and COVID-19 affect the lungs and are transmitted mainly by aerosols or particles of saliva from infected persons. Clinical similarities between diseases can affect correct diagnosis. Individuals belonging to the population deprived of liberty (PDL) are at increased risk of contagion due to precarious sanitary conditions and overcrowded environments. A variety of specimens may be suitable for the diagnosis of COVID-19, using molecular diagnostic techniques; however, there is little data on the analysis of sputum samples with the Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2® for the diagnosis of COVID-19, especially in this population group. The present study reports a case of TB and COVID-19 co-infection detected in sputum from an individual belonging to the PDL. For the detection, it used the GeneXpert platform (Cepheid, USA). Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) was detected using the Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra® cartridge and SARS-CoV-2 was detected using the Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2® cartridge. The genes IS6110 and IS1081 were detected within 80 min indicating the presence of MTC, with no mutations related to resistance to rifampicin. The SARS-CoV-2 E and N2 genes were detected within 45 min. The result was confirmed by RT-qPCR with detection of E, N, and RdRP/S genes in the sputum and nasopharyngeal (NP) specimens. Rapid diagnoses that allow the identification and differentiation of such diseases are important for adequate epidemiological surveillance, isolation of infected individuals, and interruption of the transmission chain. Using the GeneXpert platform, specimens can be tested as soon as they are received, without the need for prior preparation. The US Food and Drug Administration has issued emergency authorization for the use of the Cepheid Xpert Xpress SARS-CoV-2 for the rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 using specimens from a NP or nasal wash/aspirate. The case presented here gains an innovation with the use of the sputum to COVID-19 diagnosis.

Herd culture and herd immunity

Although communicable diseases affect our bodies, they occur in a society that interprets and gives them meaning. Herd immunity provides the body protection;however, long-term protection requires shifts in the way people interpret and respond to disease, cultural transformation that enables the development of the knowledge, habits and skills that make herd immunity feasible and sustainable. Herd culture allows individuals to protect themselves and restrict their liberty in order to protect others;it is a form of exercising positive liberty and a necessary complement to herd immunity in a democratic society.