The Knowledge and Attitude of Physicians Regarding Vaccinations in Yerevan, Armenia: Challenges for COVID-19

BackgroundThis primary-data analysis investigates the current level of awareness and medical knowledge of physicians in 20 health facilities in Yerevan, Armenia regarding vaccination - specifically with regard to HPV infection and the recently-introduced Gardasil vaccine used against HPV infection - that may have implications for successful roll-outs of national programmes for new vaccines, including those for COVID-19. MethodsA questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was completed by 348 physicians who met the study inclusion criteria, from 20 out of 36 randomly selected healthcare facilities in Yerevan, Armenia, between Dec 2017 to Sep 2018. The aim of the questionnaire was to identify physicians awareness of and attitudes to HPV-related cervical cancer and the Gardasil vaccine. Responses were analysed using SPSS software (Version 16). ResultsThe responding physicians displayed a respectable level of knowledge and awareness regarding vaccination with regard to some characteristics (e.g. more than 81% knew that HPV infection was commonly asymptomatic, 87% were knew that HPV infection was implicated in most cervical cancers and 87% knew that cervical cancer is the most prevalent cancer amongst women) but low knowledge in others and poor understanding of key issues such as the age at which women were most likely to develop cervical cancer (only 15% answered correctly); whether or not the vaccine should be administered to people who had already been affected (27% answered correctly) and whether sexually active young people should be treated for infection before vaccination (26%). Lack of confidence within the surveyed groups regarding the value of vaccination and, in particular concerns over the reasons for administering it to certain age cohorts, was driven by misconceptions. ConclusionsArmenian physicians awareness of vaccine characteristics, the reasons for their inclusion in the national vaccination programme and the characteristics of the diseases they treat can be poor. The study further suggests that drivers of vaccine hesitancy are complex, may not be consistent from vaccine to vaccine, and may vary from generation to generation. The Armenian healthcare sector may need to provide additional training, awareness-raising and educational activities to improve understanding of and trust in vaccination programmes. Further studies are warranted to better understand knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) regarding immunization and vaccination programmes amongst Armenian healthcare workers.

Norwich COVID-19 Testing Initiative: feasibility project evaluation

BackgroundThere is a high prevalence of COVID-19 in university-age students, who are returning to university campuses. There is little evidence regarding the feasibility of universal, asymptomatic testing to control outbreaks in this population. This study aimed to pilot mass COVID-19 testing on a university research park, to assess the feasibility and acceptability of scaling up to all staff and students. MethodsThis was a cross-sectional feasibility study on a university research park in the East of England. Staff and students (5,625) on the research park were eligible to participate. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing was offered to all participants. Participants were offered 4 swabs, which they self-administered over a two-week period. Outcome measures included: uptake; drop-out rate; positivity rates; participant acceptability measures; laboratory processing measures. Results798/1053 (76%) of those who registered provided at least one swab and of these, 687 (86%) provided all four. 681/687 (99%) had all negative results. 6 participants had one inconclusive result. There were no positive results. 458/798 (57%) participants responded to a post-testing questionnaire. 446/458 (97.5%) of those who responded agreed that they would be interested in repeat testing in the future. ConclusionsRepeated self-testing is feasible and acceptable to a university population.

Anti-Realist Pluralism: a New Approach to Folk Metaethics.

Many metaethicists agree that as ordinary people experience morality as a realm of objective truths, we have a prima facie reason to believe that it actually is such a realm. Recently, worries have been raised about the validity of the extant psychological research on this argument's empirical hypothesis. Our aim is to advance this research, taking these worries into account. First, we propose a new experimental design for measuring folk intuitions about moral objectivity that may serve as an inspiration for future studies. Then we report and discuss the results of a survey that was based on this design. In our study, most of our participants denied the existence of objective truths about most or all moral issues. In particular, many of them had the intuition that whether moral sentences are true depends both on their own moral beliefs and on the dominant moral beliefs within their culture ("anti-realist pluralism"). This finding suggests that the realist presumptive argument may have to be rejected and that instead anti-realism may have a presumption in its favor.

Empirical research on folk moral objectivism.

Lay persons may have intuitions about morality's objectivity. What do these intuitions look like? And what are their causes and consequences? In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have begun to investigate these questions empirically. This article presents and assesses the resulting area of research as well as its potential philosophical implications. First, we introduce the methods of empirical research on folk moral objectivism. Second, we provide an overview of the findings that have so far been made. Third, we raise a number of methodological worries that cast doubt upon these findings. And fourth, we discuss ways in which lay persons' intuitions about moral objectivity may bear on philosophical claims.

Meta-ethical pluralism: A cautionary tale about cohesive moral communities.

Meta-ethical pluralism gives us additional insight into how moral communities become cohesive and why this can be problematic (even dangerous)--and in this way provides support for the worries raised by the target article. At the same time, it offers several reasons to be concerned about the proposed initiative, the most important of which is that it could seriously backfire.

On intuitional stability: the clear, the strong, and the paradigmatic.

Skepticism about the epistemic value of intuition in theoretical and philosophical inquiry has recently been bolstered by empirical research suggesting that people's concrete-case intuitions are vulnerable to irrational biases (e.g., the order effect). What is more, skeptics argue that we have no way to "calibrate" our intuitions against these biases and no way of anticipating intuitional instability. This paper challenges the skeptical position, introducing data from two studies that suggest not only that people's concrete-case intuitions are often stable, but also that people have introspective awareness of this stability, providing a promising means by which to assess the epistemic value of our intuitions.