The COVID-19 pandemic has battered the entire world over the last two years, with no clear end yet in sight, though some populations and some locales have fared better than others. This public health disaster has thrown into stark focus many shortcomings in health care policy and delivery across the world, and has raised profound ethical concerns at international, national, state, community, and personal levels. Bioethics has been called to apply its conceptual approaches and deliberative tools to help shape policies and assist decisions with life-and-death consequences “in the time of covid”.

Learning Objectives

• Review basic foundations and theories of bioethics
• Review applications of bioethics to epidemics and disasters
• Assess events in the COVID-19 pandemic through the bioethics lens
• Identify needed changes to better prepare for the “next pandemic”