World leaders need moral compass to fight coronavirus

My feature article on the need for ethical leadership during the coronavirus crisis was published this week by MercatorNet under the title "Now more than ever, leaders and governments need a moral compass."

The article looked at five ways in which governments face ethical challenges due to the Covid19 pandemic. Many of these challenges arise from the fact that the virus is new with very little still known about it as well as the fact that it is sweeping through societies around the world at a phenomenal speed that is placing health care systems under considerable pressure.

The article looked at the following ethical challenges for governments:

1. Setting principles and criteria for frontline medical workers who have to make decisions about who lives and who dies as hospital systems come under pressure due to insufficient medical equipment such as ventilators;

2. Allocation of scarce medical resources in a way that would avoid creating systemic gaps and detrimental social stratification;

3. Appropriate strategies to fight the virus, looking particularly at the concept of "herd immunity" and the risks it might pose;

4. Management of the economic challenges that have resulted in countries impacted by the virus and now facing massive unemployment; and,

5. Looking to the future, how to avoid a slide into protectionism and nationalism as the world emerges from the crisis.

The full article can be read here.