Ethics, (post)pandemic and duty of anticipation

e202112199

Abstract

During the public health crisis generated by COVID-19, numerous political and health management decisions have been adopted in a context of enormous uncertainty and in the absence of protocols adapted to the specificities of the health situation. The urgency required by the initial emergency situation required making such decisions without certainty that they were the most appropriate. The perspective offered by time allows us to better assess which of those decisions were more correct and which were less so. Therefore, the objective of this monograph is to elaborate the lessons that can be extracted from the errors and successes in the management of the pandemic, in such a way that they are useful for other exceptional public health situations that continue to arise and that predictably will appear in the future.

This collective work aims to identify some of the problems that have occupied experts and professionals from different branches of medicine and public health since the beginning of the management of the pandemic. Thus, we seek to identify areas where research can be most useful, especially from the point of view of public health ethics. The objective pursued with this monograph is to offer an overview of all those learning that can be tracked.