How can bioethics help software in medicine? “Bioethicists can help strengthen ethical, legal, and social analyses that identify the questions to create a good mix of both precautionary and permissive regulation.”

“Working with limited supplies and imperfect scheduling systems, many pharmacists are drowning under a flood of inquiries. Wait lists, where they exist, are getting longer. And even creative solutions are succumbing to the cold realities of the day.”

What drives vaccine hesitancy among healthcare workers? “The hesitancy is less outright rejection than cautious skepticism. It’s driven by suspicions about the evidence supporting the new vaccines and about the motives of those endorsing them.”

“Yet, design choices in the built health care environment raise substantive bioethical issues that demand the attention of bioethicists and ethical inquiry. It is time for the built environment to be considered alongside other parameters of care.”

A big component of vaccine distribution has been utilizing ethics to determine vaccine prioritization. Issac Chotiner of The New Yorker speaks with immunologist Barry Bloom to discuss what goes into making decisions on vaccine distribution.

With efficacious medications available, ethics considers who has access to these drugs and who is at risk of losing them. Under COVID-19, the pandemic has accelerated the growth of many health disparities in the United States. Recently, there has been an increase in “pharmacy deserts”, where people struggle to fill medications locally because the drugs are no longer covered by Medicare of Medicaid.

The new COVID-19 variants that have popped up in the United Kingdom and South Africa are the new obstacles to tackle in the pandemic. Will current vaccines be able to measure up against new strains? Scientists are seeking an answer.

Why has vaccine distribution fallen into disarray across the United States? Lack of funding and coordination between state and local governments has left citizens confused about their vaccination opportunities. What will come in year 2 of COVID-19?

Testing is essential to our fight against #COVID-19. Have you thought about those that give tests to millions of Americans daily? Testing teams are grappling with burnout as these surges approach. How can we consider this population in ethics?

AstraZeneca recently disclosed a key mistake in their vaccine trials. How will this impact the trust and reliability of their results? What ethics needs to be considered regarding this mistake? Can these results now hold up with further testing?