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News & Announcements

  • Pandemic Agreement

    World Health Assembly adopts historic Pandemic Agreement to make the world more equitable and safer from future pandemics. https://www.who.int/news/item/20-05-2025-world-health-assembly-adopts-historic-pandemic-agreement-to-make-the-world-more-equitable-and-safer-from-future-pandemics

  • Threats to Public Health at Every Angle

    Epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina, writes an insightful and free-of-jargon explanation of the week’s developments in public health in her Substack column called Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE). In her March 28, 2025 issue, the anniversary of the beginning of the Covid pandemic, … Read more

  • Pandemic Ethics and Nursing Practice: When Will We Learn?

    “Both reason and emotions should be engaged in ethical decision-making. Situations and cases which reflect the complex, emotional, relational and cultural dimensions of ethics should be used or developed for pandemic ethics education.” In: Scott, PA and Scott SM. (Eds) … Read more

  • Covid heroes

    During New York City’s darkest days, some residents found purpose and meaning in helping their neighbors stay safe and even find a bit of joy. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/nyregion/new-york-pandemic-heroes.html?searchResultPosition=9      

  • What Covid has taught the world about ethics

    What Covid has taught the world about ethics. New England Journal of Medicine, Oct 22, 2022,Vol 387,No 17; DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2210173.

  • Systemic moral courage

    As we spin in the Waring blender that is dismantling federal public health institutions, and as misinformation is promoted from the top, public health workers need to know when and how to exercise courage and resistance. You can find some … Read more

  • What COVID taught us

    The COVID pandemic was a stress test for public health ethics. Ethical Implications of COVID-19 Management: Evaluating the Aftershock (2022), from Ethics Press is an edited book of helpful insights.



What is Pandemic Ethics?

A pandemic is pervasive in scope and touches virtually every human-made system. In this guidance, we focus on ethics in a government’s or an employer’s actions in a pandemic.

Public health ethics addresses the relationship between those governing or administrating and the population or employees they serve. They are best summarized by the Public Health Code of Ethics of the American Public Health Association.

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