In the Media: Smartphone Apps for Contact Tracing, Grasping at Straws
After Apple and Google announced plans to develop smartphone apps to determine if people have come within close range of anyone who’s tested positive for Covid-19, Hastings Center research scholar Karen Maschke addressed some of the ethical issues about use of these apps in an interview with OneZero. While it would be up to individuals to decide whether to download the apps, “The opt-in, in and of itself, is a problem,” Maschke said, explaining that the resulting data may be skewed toward demographic groups that are either more likely to sign up voluntarily or more vulnerable to being told they have to. Read the OneZero article.
In an interview with Mother Jones, research scholar Nancy Berlinger discussed the ways in which doctors make agonizing decision about which Covid-19 patients to save. The only hard and fast ethical rules of triage, she said, are that no groups should ever be categorically denied care, and individual doctors shouldn’t be forced to make these decisions on their own. Read the Mother Jones article.
While the world is desperate for Covid-19 medicines, and none are proven safe and effective for the disease, Hastings Center president Mildred Solomon warned against using drugs such as hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 outside of clinical trials or hospitals. She told NowThis, “If we grasp at straws, we will squander the chance to learn what works, and we could turn a pandemic into pandemonium.” Read the NowThis article.
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