Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic

^{Dr Erwin J Khoo  (in the photo above) is one of the authors of this paper.}

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak raises unique ethical dilemmas because it makes demands on society from all sectors of life, nationally and across the globe. Health professionals must deal with decisions about the allocation of scarce resources that can eventually cause moral distress and may affect one’s mental health. Everybody must deal with restrictions on freedom of movement that have shut down whole economies in an attempt to flatten the epidemic curve. Moving forward, there will be questions of when and  how it will all end? In due course, some will question the ethics behind the search for effective treatments and the development of vaccines in a time of uncertainty and distress. These sorts of predicaments— and the people that they effect—are very different. While the lasting implications of the pandemic are yet to become apparent, we here outline some of the potential lessons and address its ethical dilemmas. Want to know more? Read this paper by Dr Erwin J Khoo (an Associate Professor at IMU) and John D Lantos on this issue at Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic.