public health - Bill of Health

Pragmatism and the Chilean Constitutional Moment

September 16, 2020September 15, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Sebastián Soto

Chile is heading into a constitutional change.

After 40 years, the Chilean 1980 Constitution, enacted under Pinochet’s rule, but subsequently amended over fifty times, will probably be replaced. On October 25^th, a referendum will decide whether or not to call a constitutional convention to change the Constitution.

If the referendum passes, in April 2021 the convention will be called and will have nine months (extendable for three more, if needed) to write a new constitution. If the convention reaches an agreement on a new constitution by 2/3 of its members, a new referendum to approve it will be called during the first semester of 2022.

Social rights are expected to be one of the most contested topics discussed during the process.

Concerns Mount About Rule of Law in Argentina During COVID-19

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Roberto Gargarella

From the first time that I wrote about the COVID-19 situation in Argentina, June 8, until the date I am writing this, September 7, things have changed significantly.

First, the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in Argentina has risen to nearly 10,000; the 16^th highest death toll in the world. The total number of cases is 500,000; which places Argentina among the top 10 countries for infections worldwide.

These alarming statistics are particularly worrying in Argentina, given a number of additional facts mentioned in my original blog.

Why a COVID-19 Vaccine Shouldn’t be Mandatory

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020 Dorit Reiss 14 Comments

By Dorit Rubinstein Reiss and Y. Tony Yang

A future COVID-19 vaccine will not work without sufficient uptake, and some are considering mandates to get that uptake. Some scholars have gone so far as to call for compulsory vaccination for all U.S. residents in a recent USA Today column.

We believe premature mandates won’t work. In fact, they could backfire spectacularly.

There are several reasons for this. First, once we have an approved vaccine, we will not have enough doses to go around for those who want them. Forget mandates: even if all goes remarkably well, we will begin by producing and distributing tens of millions of doses—not the hundreds of millions needed to cover the entire United States.

Who’s to Blame for COVID-19 Outbreaks at Colleges and Universities?

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020 Sravya Chary Leave a comment

By Sravya Chary

For many U.S. colleges and universities that opted for in-person instruction this fall, the return to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic has proven disastrous, and prompted the question: who’s to blame for these new outbreaks?

Although administrators are quick to blame student behavior, in this post, I will argue that the administrations are ultimately at fault – their negligence has put students’ health at risk and exacerbated the public health catastrophe.

Protest against Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro.

Between Gross Negligence and Genocide: Brazil’s Failed Response to COVID-19

September 14, 2020September 14, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Octávio Luiz Motta Ferraz

When my first piece in this series was published on May 12^th, Brazil counted 11,000 deaths caused by COVID-19. A new health secretary had just been appointed to replace Dr. Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who was sacked for disagreeing with President Jair Bolsonaro’s views that the pandemic (which he infamously called a “little flu”) was a conspiracy of the media and that public health measures should be immediately lifted to avoid damage to the economy.

Fast forward to September 10^th and the situation, predictably, has gotten significantly worse. Brazil now counts 128,539 deaths, the second highest number in absolute terms (after the U.S., where the death toll is 190,872), and the sixth in per capita terms, with just over 60 deaths per 100,000 population. When Brazil reached the 100,000 deaths mark in early August, the president thought it more appropriate to use his Twitter account to celebrate his football team’s win at the local tournament than to make any statement on the health crisis.

The Novel Coronavirus and Civil Rights: An Update from Chile

September 14, 2020September 11, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Lidia Casas Becerra

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues apace in Chile, a test of the country’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law looms close – in just over a month, a historic referendum will be held on the possibility to change the Constitution.

The plebiscite was a key political demand during the social mobilization after October 19, 2019. But since March 18, 2020, Chile has been under the state of constitutional catastrophe or calamity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which will continue at least through September 24, 2020.

Due to the pandemic, the date of the plebiscite was moved from April to October 25th after a political agreement between Congress and the executive. Chile does not have a system allowing for either electronic voting or voting by mail.

Madison, Wisconsin / USA - April 24th, 2020: Nurses at Reopen Wisconsin Protesting against the protesters protesting safer at home order rally holding signs telling people to go home.

Great Responsibility: Navigating Moral Hazards During COVID-19

September 3, 2020September 2, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jacqueline Salwa

Younger people may be driving the COVID-19 pandemic in part because they perceive the costs of complying with public health measures as higher and the expected benefits as lower compared with older individuals.

”Indemnifying Precaution: Economic Insights for Regulation of a Highly Infectious Disease,” a paper recently published in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences, explores how to align costs and benefits so that individuals of all ages adhere to precautions.

Younger people tend to experience less severe symptoms from COVID-19 infection, and may be disproportionately affected by other aspects of the pandemic. These include depression from lack of social interaction, stifled career advancement, and difficulties with providing for dependents. Compared to younger people, older people have a greater chance of being settled down, retired, and not responsible for dependents. As a result, those that receive the least benefit from taking precautions, and incur the greatest personal costs for abiding by these precautions, have a lack of incentive to follow precautionary public health measures. This is known, in economic terms, as a moral hazard.

The Case for Face Shields: Improving the COVID-19 Public Health Policy Toolkit

September 2, 2020September 2, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff 1 Comment

By Timothy Wiemken, Ana Santos Rutschman, and Robert Gatter

As the United States battles the later stages of the first wave of COVID-19 and faces the prospect of future waves, it is time to consider the practical utility of face shields as an alternative or complement to face masks in the policy guidance. Without face shields specifically noted in national guidance, many areas may be reluctant to allow their use as an alternative to cloth face masks, even with sufficient modification.

In this post, we discuss the benefits of face shields as a substitute to face masks in the context of public health policy. We further discuss the implications and opportunity costs of creating policy guidance with only a small subset of scientific data, much of which is limited. We conclude by arguing that existing federal guidance should be expanded to include face shields as a policy option.

Political Map of South American Continent.

Regional Insights for Constitutionalizing the Right to Health in Chile

August 25, 2020August 24, 2020 Alicia Ely Yamin Leave a comment

By Alicia Ely Yamin

Chile is one of the few countries in Latin America that has not amended its constitution post-dictatorship. That is set to change on October 25^th when the country will hold a plebiscite on constitutional reform.

Any new Chilean Constitution may well follow the path of constitutional reform elsewhere in the region. These reforms, which occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s, and more recently in Mexico, expanded social rights through expanding enumerations and/or incorporation of international human rights law into the constitutional text through “constitutional blocs” (bloques de constiucionalidad).

In situating what is at stake, it is important to recall that the evolution of health rights in Latin America is closely linked to contestation over boundaries between private morality and public policy, between individual and social responsibility, and between the role of the state and markets.

The Democratic Case for Social Rights in Chile’s Constitutional Moment

August 24, 2020August 21, 2020 The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Koldo Casla

We live an era of nationalistic, angry, and xenophobic challenges to human rights, a time in which the “will of the people” is maliciously presented as contrary to human rights. We have seen human rights backlashes consistent with this instrumentalization of the so-called popular will in India, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, the Philippines, the U.S., the U.K. — the list, sadly, could go on and on.

Chile, however, presents a test case for the opposite, an opportunity to refresh the democratic case for social rights, not due to natural or international law, but because human rights is what people demand.

Tag: public health