This chapter will look at the ethical issues relating to the handling of global pandemics through the example of the Covid-19 pandemic which hit the world from 2019 and was met with extensive lock-down policies the world over, severely affecting every citizen of the world. Even after the first vaccines were approved in late 2020, and the countries of the north achieved high vaccination numbers and less stringent lock-down measures, new variants of the disease kept surfacing, inciting new lockdowns. (..)
This chapter will look at some of the main ethical issues involved in preparing for and responding to pandemic diseases, notably the dilemmas involved in the triage and allocation of scarce resources in the health sector as well as in society at large. It will also look at the extent to which the values of equality in health (nationally and internationally) and freedom rights can justifiably be restricted in order to achieve intended public health goals.