The Petrie-Flom Center Staff - Bill of Health

Bill of Health - Mask, calculator, and coins on eviction notice, covid housing evictions

The Long-Term Problem of Eviction Moratoria Without Financial Support

January 28, 2021July 15, 2022 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Beshoy Shokralla

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated preexisting vulnerabilities in the rental housing market and created a dire economic situation for both renters and small landlords. Prior to the pandemic, the poorest 20% of households were spending more than half of their income on housing costs with little to no savings.[1] Many renters who faced evictions often owed less than $600.[2] Now, due to the severe job losses brought by the pandemic, an estimated 30-40 million renters could be at risk of eviction.[3] The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia separately estimates that of 7.5 million renter households with at least one worker who has experienced some unemployment, 1.34 million renters will owe $7.2 billion in rent by December 2020.[4] That’s approximately $5,400 in rent-related debt for each household. This burden does not only affect renters, as many small landlords have also reported feeling the pressure. One survey conducted by Avail[5], an app that helps small landlords manage their property, and the Urban Institute found that about 30% of respondent-landlords have felt increased pressure to sell their properties due to the strain that the pandemic has caused.

Bill of Health - Andrew Cuomo, governor and executive power, conducts a COVID-19 press conference in front of a blue background during the pandemic

Government Authority to Respond to COVID-19, the Nondelegation Doctrine, and Legislatures vs. Governors

January 28, 2021July 15, 2022 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Beshoy Shokralla

The most common response to the pandemic has been quick and decisive action from state governors to reduce the spread of COVID-19 through executive orders and state programs. At first, the orders were accepted and seen as necessary responses to the public health emergency. As time went on, however, and these orders continued to be renewed, state governors faced criticism from citizens, businesses, and even legislators for what many believed to be an improper exercise of power. Social media sites were littered with misinformation about how these executive orders were not laws, but mere suggestions that were unenforceable. Members of state legislators, believing these orders to be an exercise of legislative powers traditionally belonging to the legislative branch, began to rally against stay-at-home orders and call for them to be revoked. These debates were especially contentious in states where the governor was of a political party different from the majority of the state legislature. The pandemic has brought several important questions into the public dialogue and into courts, among them being: 1) does the government have the authority to restrict personal liberties during a public health crisis; 2) does the executive branch have the authority to respond to these crises; and 3) to what extent can state governors enact these responses?

Society or population, social diversity. Flat cartoon vector illustration.

Bias, Fairness, and Deep Phenotyping

January 27, 2021February 18, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Nicole Martinez

Deep phenotyping research has the potential to improve understandings of social and structural factors that contribute to psychiatric illness, allowing for more effective approaches to address inequities that impact mental health.

But, in order to build upon the promise of deep phenotyping and minimize the potential for bias and discrimination, it will be important to incorporate the perspectives of diverse communities and stakeholders in the development and implementation of research projects.

Bill of Health - man in suit takes money from wealthy person while giving them a vaccine, vaccine for money, wealthy people vaccine

Wait Your Turn: How the Government Can Prevent Individuals from Using Wealth to Cut the Vaccine Line

January 26, 2021July 15, 2022 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Kareem Caryll

Since the Food & Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna in December 2020, there have been many debates on vaccine allocation and prioritization. As noted by Harvard Law School Professor Glenn Cohen in a recent interview with Annie Kapnick for the COVID-19 and The Law series, the issue of vaccine distribution is “complicated” because of competing factors decision-makers must consider. The relative weights placed on these factors has led to very different prioritization schemes. Initially, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended a hybrid plan that appeared to prioritize individuals who were most likely to contract the virus (e.g., first responders, grocery store workers) over individuals most vulnerable to severe symptoms or death from the virus if contracted (e.g., individuals over the age of 65 not in long-term care facilities).[1] In the United Kingdom, the prioritization groups were primarily based on vulnerability. Similarly, when looking more narrowly at the various plans being implemented at the state level in the United States, there are high degrees of variation.

Illustration of buttons that read "Vote 2020"

Expanding the Franchise: Constitutional Mechanisms to Make Election Administration Reforms in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic Permanent

January 22, 2021July 15, 2022 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Kareem Caryll, J.D.

By many measures, the 2020 general election for federal, state, and local positions was a success in terms of an efficient and lawful administration of election infrastructure. In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the laws and rules governing election administration in many states were changed to make voting safe and more accessible amid the health crisis. Some of the most prevalent changes enacted include increasing access to mail-in voting by mailing actual ballots or applications, expanding in-person early voting opportunities, increasing the number of ballot drop boxes available, and relaxing deadlines and requirements. As a result, the 2020 presidential election had the highest turnout for a presidential election in 120 years. Two-thirds of the voting-eligible population — 157 million Americans — voted in the presidential election and 98% of counties in the United States experienced an increase in participation over 2016. While turnout was high, available data shows that the number of rejected mail-in / absentee ballots was generally lower than in the 2016 and 2018 elections.[1]

Scientist analyzes DNA gel used in genetics, forensics, drug discovery, biology and medicine

Transplant Genomics: Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications

January 22, 2021January 22, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Tamar Schiff

The appeal of precision medicine is of particular significance in transplantation. Treatment options are already integrally dependent on genetic factors – the donor-recipient match – and the demand for transplantable tissues far outstrips the available supply.

And the potential is only growing. Advances in genetic and genomic studies have identified an increasing number of novel biomarkers of potential use in transplant-related care. These include predictors of disease course, graft survival, response to immunosuppression, and likelihood of disease recurrence or other complications.

With wider availability of sequencing technologies and innovations in databanking, future clinical applications in transplant care may require ever-growing considerations of the significance of genetic variants, fair access to precision medicine therapeutics and participation in research, ethical approaches to data aggregation, and social determinants of health.

Gavel and a house on a white background. Concept art for eviction.

Why Biden’s Extension of the Eviction Moratorium Isn’t Enough

January 21, 2021January 21, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Molly Prothero

On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, he signed an executive order calling on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to extend its federal eviction moratorium through March 2021.

But this action protects only a subset of tenants who meet specific qualifications and, crucially, know to fill out a CDC Affidavit and submit it to their landlords. And despite skyrocketing COVID-19 case counts, most state eviction moratoriums have now lifted, leaving tenants vulnerable to displacement and homelessness.

Can Schools Require the COVID-19 Vaccine? Education, Equity, and the Courts

January 19, 2021January 15, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Emily Caputo and Blake N. Shultz

As school systems consider policy options for the spring semester, both vaccination requirements and proposals to address inequities in access to education may be top of mind. However, policymakers should be aware of the possible legal challenges they may face.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an educational crisis in the United States by disrupting the learning of millions of students across the country. School closures, remote learning, and generalized societal stress have all raised serious concerns about persistent harm to adolescent learning and development — particularly among low-income and minority students.

While the pandemic has exposed widespread inequities in educational opportunity, it has also revealed the relative inability of the courts to promote access to education. A recent California lawsuit illustrates the manner in which students must rely on state-level, rather than federal, protections to ensure equal access to education. And COVID-19 vaccination requirements, which could facilitate a return to in-person education, are likely to result in lawsuits, and may be struck down by a skeptical and conservative Supreme Court.

Balancing Health Care Rationing and Disability Rights in a Pandemic

January 15, 2021January 14, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Yolanda Bustillo and Rachel Perler

Amid the present surge of the coronavirus pandemic, it is crucial that disability rights are a factor in the development of triage protocols.

During the last week of December, the CDC recorded a record of 225,269 new coronavirus cases and 118,948 total hospitalizations. Health care systems across the country have predicted that they soon may face shortages of ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE), and other limited resources.

In Utah, for example, hospital administrators have implemented informal triage protocols that prioritize patients based on health status, clinical factors, and the time sensitivity of their needed procedures. Hospitals in California have similarly begun rationing care.

If these dire circumstances worsen, hospital systems may apply triage protocols that deviate from best practices and impermissibly discriminate against people with disabilities.

How Can Policymakers Encourage COVID-19 Vaccine Trials for Children?

January 11, 2021January 11, 2021 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Cross-posted from Written Description, where it originally appeared on December 18, 2020.

By Jacob S. Sherkow, Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, Nicholson Price, and Rachel Sachs

The past two weeks have been full of exciting COVID-19 vaccine news, including the FDA’s emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for the Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna vaccines and the nationwide rollout of Pfizer’s vaccine. Choosing how to allocate access to vaccine doses has been left to individual states, leaving policymakers with difficult decisions about how to prioritize their populations, complicated in part by the federal government’s reduction in some vaccine shipments.

With a limited supply of doses, who should get the first shots? Some commentators have suggested prioritizing children early for a host of reasons, including hope about children returning to school. Last month a New York Times column asserted that “saving the most lives could mean prioritizing the vaccination of children and young adults.” But there is an important reason that kids can’t be part of the vaccine line yet: we don’t know whether these vaccines work for them. In this post, we explain why COVID-19 vaccines are only just starting to be tested in children and what policymakers can do to spur pediatric vaccine trials.

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