Question

You are an intern at the health department of your city. An outbreak of coronavirus has been detected in a hotel in your city. 10 guests are infected. You must decide whether to quarantine the hotel or not. There are 1000 guests in the hotel. From previous experience, we know that at least half of them will be infected if the quarantine goes in to effect. If there is no quarantine the virus will spread more rapidly to the general population in the city. What would you do? Your city has 8 million population. The death rate of this virus is 2%, the cost of lock down of hotel is AED 1M per day. The length of the quarantine is 2 months. What would you do? Use the five step ethical decision making approach to resolve this case and indicate which approach you will be taken.

Answer 1

Hi,

I hope you are doing well!

Question;

Answer:

Ethical decision making approach:

Ethical decision-making refers to the process of evaluating and choosing among alternatives in a manner consistent with ethical principles. In making ethical decisions, it is necessary to perceive and eliminate unethical options and select the best ethical alternative.

There are five approaches of ethical decision making:

1). Utilitarian Approach.

2). Rights Approach.

3). Fairness/Justice Approach.

4). Common Good Approach.

5). Virtue Approach.

Situation as per the question: .

An outbreak of coronavirus has been detected in a hotel in your city. 10 guests are infected. You must decide whether to quarantine the hotel or not. There are 1000 guests in the hotel. From previous experience, we know that at least half of them will be infected if the quarantine goes in to effect. If there is no quarantine the virus will spread more rapidly to the general population in the city. What would you do? Your city has 8 million population. The death rate of this virus is 2%, the cost of lock down of hotel is AED 1M per day. The length of the quarantine is 2 months.

Here, in this case 10 guests are infected in a hotel and there are 1000 guests in the hotel. So, the case is related to a specific hotel. And this is directly related to the health of the people of the and it is the vital concern regarding the public health. As a intern at the health department i will follow the Utilitarian Approach to solve this critical and important concern that is directly related to public health.

Utilitarian Approach: What benefits and what harms will each course of action produce, and which alternative will lead to the best overall consequences? This question answers the dilemma of which option will produce the greatest benefits and least harm.

Steps that will i follow:

a). Identify the ethical issue: Here the concern related to the public health. I will collect all the required information from the hotel about the premises, facilities, staffs, infrastructure and guests. I will also collect the data about the Corona positive guests separately like, from how many days they are staying their, purpose of visit, is all the guests are staying in septate room or some are staying together. I also collect the information regarding the their visit within the city.

b). Make Prediction: now i will predict about the situation like, how many people in the city get in touch with these Corona affected guests. I will take the help of previous record and will measure the impact and depth of the challenges because of it. I will also take the help of the experts for the same.

c).Evaluate Alternative Actions(Multiple approaches): In the third stage i will evaluate Alternative Actions. Here i will have two option: first, to keep in quarantine of the total staffs and guests of the hotel and other suspected people of the city who could be affected to get in touch with him or second, total or complete lockdown. But as a decision maker i will follow the first action. Because historical data show that complete lockdown is not successful at expected level.I will chose it on the basis of total cost (economic + social + political). I will not push them (8 millions population) in trouble and will take care about their freedom and rights.

d).Take the decision and test it: I will chose the fist action because the cost of total or complete lock down is very high. 8 millions of people will affected from complete lockdown and get the loss of millions of dollars. We also see the death ratio is 4% so, i can improve it by enhancing the medical facilities and reduce at minimum level. I can also issue the some basic guide lines for the people like, social distancing, hand washing, wearing mask etc. I hope will definitely control the situation though my strategy.

f). Evaluate outcome: I will evaluate the result from from this action and will compare with the expected result. If it will be satisfactory then i will keep it continue otherwise i will revise or modify it according to the situation.

So, i will follow this steps and shutout the problem in the best manner.

Thank You