Bioethics In A Pandemic: Vaccine Distribution

After months of stay-at-home orders, quarantine protocols, social distancing, and back-to-school planning, the ever- present question on everyone's mind is, When will we get back to business as usual? For many, the answer involves discussion of a safe and effective vaccine, including when it will be available and who will be able to get it. Even though a vaccine likely won't be available until 2021 at the earliest, experts are already thinking about how to distribute it. This post is the first in a blog series that will consider the various bioethics issues and principles related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last month, the directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) charged a group of independent scientists and ethicists with developing guidelines to determine who should get the first doses of an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine.