Bioethicist to conduct Facebook Live session
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised many ethical questions and considerations, from concerns about which patients should have access to a ventilator to whether wearing a mask is an individual choice.
As Illinois enters new phases of vaccination efforts, each category brings new questions. What if someone’s job makes them eligible for a vaccine, but they have the option to work from home? Should they not get the vaccine so it can go to someone without that flexibility? What about people sharing vaccine appointment codes?
News stories are recounting ethical issues faced by those who dispense the vaccines, like a doctor who had hours to use a vial of a COVID-19 vaccine, gave shots to 10 people and was fired.
And on the government level, some may wonder how decisions are made about which residents get vaccines soonest.
The Tribune will talk to Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at the University of Chicago who has advised federal health agencies and considered many of the complicated moral questions raised by the pandemic, including the prioritizing of vulnerable populations and how people can make the best individual and ethical decisions.
The link to the Facebook Live stream will go up on the Tribune’s Facebook page at 12:30 p.m. Monday. Our COVID-19 Q&A is continuously updated. If you have a question that we haven’t answered there, send it to chicagotribune.com/ ask.