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The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics
The potential for vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for vaccination policy and ethics. In this paper, I discuss recent evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccines have only a modest and short-lived effect on reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and argue that this has at l...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Nature Singapore
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9768787/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36542290 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11673-022-10223-6 |
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author | Kraaijeveld, Steven R. |
author_facet | Kraaijeveld, Steven R. |
author_sort | Kraaijeveld, Steven R. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The potential for vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for vaccination policy and ethics. In this paper, I discuss recent evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccines have only a modest and short-lived effect on reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and argue that this has at least four important ethical implications. First, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should be seen primarily as a self-protective choice for individuals. Second, moral condemnation of unvaccinated people for causing direct harm to others is unjustified. Third, the case for a harm-based moral obligation to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is weak. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, coercive COVID-19 vaccination policies (e.g., measures that exclude unvaccinated people from society) cannot be directly justified by the harm principle. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9768787 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Springer Nature Singapore |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97687872022-12-21 The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics Kraaijeveld, Steven R. J Bioeth Inq Critical Perspectives The potential for vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for vaccination policy and ethics. In this paper, I discuss recent evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccines have only a modest and short-lived effect on reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and argue that this has at least four important ethical implications. First, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should be seen primarily as a self-protective choice for individuals. Second, moral condemnation of unvaccinated people for causing direct harm to others is unjustified. Third, the case for a harm-based moral obligation to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is weak. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, coercive COVID-19 vaccination policies (e.g., measures that exclude unvaccinated people from society) cannot be directly justified by the harm principle. Springer Nature Singapore 2022-12-21 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9768787/ /pubmed/36542290 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11673-022-10223-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Critical Perspectives Kraaijeveld, Steven R. The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics |
title | The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics |
title_full | The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics |
title_fullStr | The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics |
title_full_unstemmed | The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics |
title_short | The Ethical Significance of Post-Vaccination COVID-19 Transmission Dynamics |
title_sort | ethical significance of post-vaccination covid-19 transmission dynamics |
topic | Critical Perspectives |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9768787/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36542290 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11673-022-10223-6 |
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