international connections concept art.

‘We Claimed Victory Before Time’: COVID-19 in Uruguay

By Chloe Reichel

Leer en español.

Uruguay, once hailed as a model for its pandemic response, recently has seen some of the world’s sharpest increases in COVID-19 cases. Earlier this month, the infection rate in the country surpassed 1,300 cases per 100,000 residents over a 14-day period.

What happened?

I asked Dr. Gonzalo Moratorio, virologist at the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo and professor on the Faculty of Science at the Universidad de la República, to explain the shift. Moratorio was instrumental to Uruguay’s early successes in the pandemic, developing and distributing test kits that allowed the country to efficiently identify and isolate cases.

In this Q&A, which has been edited and condensed, he offers a look at the past, present, and future of the COVID-19 pandemic in Uruguay.

Read More

globe.

‘I Think of It in Terms of Years’: The Future of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Africa

By Chloe Reichel

“No One Is Safe Until Everyone Is Safe” goes the rallying cry for global vaccine equity.

We would think that the COVID-19 pandemic already has made this point clear enough.

And yet, pundits are heralding the “end” of the pandemic in the U.S., all while viral variants that may be capable of evading the protection of vaccines continue to crop up both domestically and internationally.

In this Q&A, South African journalist and human rights activist Mark Heywood offers a look at the national COVID-19 epidemic in South Africa. The sobering reality there, in terms of morbidity and mortality, and in terms of expectations for the future, underscores the urgency for globally coordinated leadership and action to address the pandemic.

Our conversation from late March 2021, which has been edited and condensed, follows.

Read More

Cape Town, South Africa - 6 April 2020 : Empty streets and stay home sign in Cape Town during the Coronavirus lockdown.

One Year Later: COVID-19, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law in South Africa

By Chloe Reichel

South Africa has faced a devastating national COVID-19 epidemic, with over 1.5 million confirmed cases, and over 50,000 confirmed deaths.

The true toll, in terms of cases and deaths, is likely much higher. Research shows the country has recorded 150,000 excess deaths since May 2020.

The pandemic has also profoundly affected South Africans’ constitutionally recognized rights.

Since the start of the pandemic, the country has experienced varying degrees of lockdown, which, at different points, included a curfew, bans on the sale of alcohol and tobacco, and the closure of most businesses. The lockdown has been enforced strictly, resulting in hundreds of thousands of arrests for violations.

Mark Heywood highlighted some of these rights concerns last June in “Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and COVID-19 in South Africa,” a contribution to Bill of Health‘s digital symposium on global responses to COVID-19.

I spoke with Heywood in late March 2021 to get an update on the state of human rights and the rule of law in South Africa one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed, follows.

Read More

Supreme Court of Mexico.

How Does the Mexican Constitution Regulate Crisis?

By David García Sarubbi

When the Mexican Constitution was issued in 1917, one of its main concerns was to regulate how democracy must deal with crisis, that is, with exceptional situations that demand the exercise of powers outside the Constitution’s regular limits to suppress potential dangers.

There is not an “off switch” available for political powers to put the Constitution to rest while solving urgent issues. Instead, there are complex rules to govern decisions in extraordinary circumstances.

The Constitution’s Article 29 has a Suspension Clause, which contains a detailed regulation for such cases. Moreover, in Article 73, Section XVI, there is another regulation relating to pandemics like the one we are experiencing currently.

Thus, from the founding era, the Mexican constitution has upheld the value of the rule of law, even in extraordinary circumstances.

Read More

Medicine doctor and stethoscope in hand touching icon medical network connection with modern virtual screen interface, medical technology network concept

Regulation of Access to Clinical Data in Chile’s New Constitution

By Gabriela Y. Novoa and Alexis M. Kalergis

As Chileans prepare to vote on whether or not to create a new Constitution, an issue worth considering relative to this reform concerns access to clinical data.

The Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile dates back to 1980, and, in the past decades, has undergone several amendments, including key reforms in August 1989, August 2005, and August 2019. As part of this last modification, it was agreed to organize a plebiscite to democratically decide whether or not to elaborate an entirely new constitutional text. If the alternative of generating a new constitution is adopted, it will consist of a constitution written from square one, rather than a modification to the existing text.

As part of the public discussion relative to the potential approval of the need for a new constitution, an open debate has taken place about which issues should or should not be incorporated into this new text.

Among several important themes, the need to regulate the access to clinical data of patients, also called “interoperability,” arises as a major one. Such an issue is linked to the rights to life, to health and privacy protection, individual honor and personal data and property, which are currently established as constitutional guarantees by Article 19 of the current Constitution. Further, the legal framework dealing with this issue is currently mainly found in Law No. 20,584, which regulates the Rights and Duties of individuals in connection with actions associated to their health care, and in Law No. 19,628 (on the protection of the privacy of individuals).

Read More

A stethoscope tied around a pile of cash, with a pill bottle nearby. The pill bottle has cash and pills inside.

Can We Expect Legislation on Surprise Medical Billing? I’d Be Surprised

By Abe Sutton

Surprise medical billing has emerged as a top political priority amid a torrent of complaints about expensive balance billing.

Despite leaders such as President Trump, former Vice President Biden, and members of the 116th Congress pledging to address surprise medical billing, federal legislation is unlikely, due to powerful health associations’ divergent interests. To shake legislation loose, the President would need to publicly take a side and expend political capital on a creative solution.

In this piece, I walk through why federal legislative action has been stymied to date, and what it would take to get surprise medical billing legislation over the line.

Read More

shopping trolley with medicine

Concerns Raised by ‘Georgia Access’ 1332 Waiver Application

By Matthew B. Lawrence and Haley Gintis

Georgia has applied to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for a waiver under the Affordable Care Act that would allow it to reshape its private health insurance marketplace.

HHS is accepting comments on the application through September 23, 2020. Commenters so far have raised various issues, including concerns about how the waiver would, if granted, impact access to treatment for mental illness and behavioral health conditions such as substance use disorder.

This blog post summarizes the revised waiver in Part I, changes from the original in Part II, and recent comments about its desirability in Part III.

Read More

Santiago, Chile - Crosswalk in long-exposure.

Chile’s New Constitution, the Right to Health, and Health System Reforms

By Marco Antonio Nuñez

During these months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile, the need to align the constitutional process with long-postponed structural reforms to the health system has become evident among public health experts.

Capitalizing on this moment might avoid the possibility of a constitutional right to health becoming a dead letter or being reduced only to the prosecution of particular cases, postponing again the aspirations of the majority of Chileans.

Although the Chilean Constitution promulgated under the dictatorship in 1980 and subsequently reformed in several of its chapters recognizes “The right to the protection of health,” it has been tainted by authoritarianism from its origin, and promotes a subsidiary role of the state in health.

Read More

gavel and stethoscope on white background

The Right to Health in the Upcoming Constitutional Debate in Chile

By Veronica Vargas

At this unprecedented COVID moment, health has been revealed as one of our most precious possessions and protecting it has become imperative. The right to health was articulated by the WHO in the Declaration of Alma-Ata of 1978. The upcoming constitutional debate in Chile is an opportunity to re-examine this concept.

The Chilean constitution specifies the right to “free and egalitarian access” to health care. Simultaneously, the constitution guarantees that “each person has the right to choose the health system they wish to join, either public or private.”

These provisions have championed a prospering private health sector, with corporate clinics and a private insurance system that represents almost half of total health spending.

However, this private sector serves less than 20 percent of the population. Nearly 80 percent of the population utilizes public sector insurance. Although the public sector has been expanding its coverage of health services, and health indicators for those with public insurance have been improving, the public sector is chronically underfunded. Public sector health care spending represents only 4% of the GDP.

Read More