Tag Archives: COVID

Covid Philosophy Week, 10-13 May 2021 – Registration Open

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The journal Philosophy of Medicine, the Department of HPS, Cambridge, and the Institute for the Future of Knowledge, U Johannesburg, bring you a multi-day programme of philosophical discussions responding to Covid-19. There are three events:

10-13 May, Conference: Philosophical Perspectives on Covid-19, hosted by Philosophy of Medicine and the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (UJ)

12 May, Workshop: The Individual and the Population, part of the series Rethinking the Ethics of Vaccination organized by Emma Curran and Stephen John (Cambridge HPS)

13 May, Panel: Philosophy of Medicine on Covid-19, hosted by Philosophy of Medicine and the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (UJ)

These events have been timetabled so that they do not clash and are accessible for as broad a range of time zones as possible.

Registration and further info for all three events available here: https://philmed.pitt.edu/philmed/CovidWeek

Warm regards,

The Editors, Philosophy of Medicine

https://philmed.pitt.edu/

Is lockdown right? Bioethics, global health, and COVID-19

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I gave a public lecture at Virginia Commonwealth University, and it’s up on YouTube here. Bear in mind it was midnight my time… surreal but enjoyable experience.

In this talk I argue for these five claims:

  1. Several common arguments for lockdowns fail
  2. Many actual lockdowns have been unjustified and wrong: other measures would have been better
  3. Globally, lockdowns shift the burden of disease from the powerful and wealthy to the less powerful and poor
  4. The global preference for lockdowns is due to their favoring the interests of the rich and powerful
  5. Optional extra: the favoring of lockdowns by the “left” and rejection by the “right” has nothing to do with their intrinsic character: they are as much right as left and vice versa

How Should We Evaluate Lockdowns? Disentangling Effectiveness, Context, and Politics

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Very pleased to share a new blog post I’ve written with Herkulaas Combrink, Benjamin Smart and Damian Walker for the Center for Global Development’s commentary and analysis section.

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/how-should-we-evaluate-lockdowns-disentangling-effectiveness-context-and-politics

Is lockdown right? Bioethics, global health and COVID-19. Talk I’m giving for PhilHEAD workshop https://philhead.org/events/ 17 Oct, 3pm SA/EU

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Excited to be giving these thoughts their first outing, in what I hope will be my considered philosophical paper on the thoughts I’ve been having during 2020. The event is open and you can join here: https://bit.ly/3lnxPci

Interview – why lockdowns didn’t work in South Africa – Radio 702 https://omny.fm/shows/early-breakfast-with-abongile-nzelenzele/why-lockdown-didnt-work

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https://omny.fm/shows/early-breakfast-with-abongile-nzelenzele/why-lockdown-didnt-work

Commenting on a recent piece in The Conversation, related to a paper published in Global Epidemiology recently, indicating no obvious effect of lockdown over and above mitigation in South Africa.

Lockdown didn’t work in South Africa https://theconversation.com/lockdown-didnt-work-in-south-africa-why-it-shouldnt-happen-again-147682https://theconversation.com/lockdown-didnt-work-in-south-africa-why-it-shouldnt-happen-again-147682

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Latest from our ongoing research project at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge with the Center for Global Development. We are looking at indirect health effects of lockdown, meaning the effects on things other than COVID-19. But in the process, we couldn’t help but notice the direct effects too – or rather, their absence…

https://theconversation.com/lockdown-didnt-work-in-south-africa-why-it-shouldnt-happen-again-147682

Paper just out in Global Epidemiology: COVID-19 in South Africa https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloepi.2020.100034 #epitwitter @CGDev @besmart

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590113320300183

With Herkulaas Combrink and Benjamin Smart.

Part of a project at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge funded by the Center for Global Development. The project looks at the indirect health effects of lockdown in multiple countries.

Lots of people in Africa have already been infected with SARS-Cov-2. Good news, if frustrating for those of us predicting this since March https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/pandemic-appears-have-spared-africa-so-far-scientists-are-struggling-explain-why

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https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/pandemic-appears-have-spared-africa-so-far-scientists-are-struggling-explain-why

Lockdown was never right for Africa. Half the population is 19 or under, highlighted in this report; and known prior to COVID, of course. On the cost side of the balance sheet, other risks are massively dominant over that posed by COVID-19. Living conditions mean that suppression was never achievable in any case. Costs of lockdown were obviously going to be horrific, because recession means starvation in contexts of poverty. What a mess for those countries that did lock down. And those that didn’t seem to be doing fine, COVID-wise: e.g. Malawi, whose supreme court prevented the government from locking down.

Aside from all that, it’s clear that there’s a great deal of uncertainty about why some places get hit so much harder than others by COVID-19. Sweden is held up as being hit hard, and blamed; but that ignores the fact that many other European countries that did lock down were hit a lot harder. Why? I favour the following theory: we don’t know.

Epistemic humility in all matters relating to medicine is always appropriate.