LAUSR

As countries, public health professionals, and policy-makers work together to confront the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, difficult ethical and social decisions and implications arise. Among them are issues related to rationing limited health resources, including protective equipment for medical staff and respiratory machines for sick patients, especially in the critically care units; imposing limits to individual freedoms and movement with a possible distinction between groups of people, that is, the elderly as opposed to the younger generation; expanding the access to palliative care to dying COVID-19 patients; upholding professional and ethical duties to treat and care in the face of serious health risk and personal danger; and so forth.