COVID-19 and public involvement in research

In relation to pandemic policy in England, the absence of sustained ethical discourse at the level of government has created fundamental challenges to establishing how responsibility should be understood—practically, and as a matter of principle.

In the wake of the announced ending of most COVID restrictions the talk is inevitably of what the new normal will look like. Prominent in these discussions is the idea that there might be an ‘acceptable level of deaths’.

Guest post from Shaun Griffin and Hugh Whittall, UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator.

Just over a year ago we closed our 2-year long in-depth inquiry and published our final report 'Research in global health emergencies: ethical issues'.

Around this time last year, I packed up my office laptop and cheerily bid farewell to colleagues, assuring them I’d see them “in a few weeks” once lockdown was over. Reader, it was not a few weeks. Over a year to the day, I have yet to return to any office and indeed, having joined the Nuffield Council a couple of months into lockdown, have yet to meet many of my new colleagues in the flesh.