Search Results for: covid-19

Camila Gianella, Ruth Iguiñiz-Romero, María José Romero, and Jasmine Gideon Peru received international acclaim for being one of the first countries to implement a comprehensive package of measures to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government imposed a general lockdown, combined with social protection measures—mainly cash transfers and the distribution of food parcels. This was an attempt to mitigate the impact of the lockdown, in a country where…

Continue reading “Good Health Indicators are Not Enough: Lessons from COVID-19 in Peru”

Diya Uberoi Around the world, research to find a possible vaccine or treatment for the novel coronavirus has begun. The magnitude of the pandemic and its impact on the global economy makes the need for affordable medicines and treatment a pressing issue. But if we are to win the battle to contain COVID-19, then states must prioritize equitable access to affordable prevention, treatment, and care, and to do that, there…

Continue reading “Learning from the Past: COVID-19 and Affordable Health Treatment”

Leonard Rubenstein and Matthew DeCamp The Siracusa Principles have had a good run over the past 35 years.[1] The public health provisions of the principles, which contain criteria for limiting civil and political rights to advance various public purposes, have offered governments standards for acceptable restrictions on rights to reduce the spread of infectious disease. They require that restrictions be based on legitimate aim, law, and necessity; evidence-based; the least-restrictive…

Continue reading “Revisiting Restrictions of Rights After COVID-19”

Gautam Gulati, Colum P. Dunne, and Brendan D. Kelly The COVID-19 pandemic is a time of unprecedented tension between the rights of the individual and those of society. Internationally, new regulations govern freedom of movement, access to healthcare and, in some countries, “intrusive biopolitics”.1 This presents the complex interface between human rights and public health. Prior to the current pandemic, the clearest examples of the tensions between the well-being of…

Continue reading “Do COVID-19 Responses Imperil the Human Rights of People with Disabilities?”

Marie Claire Van Hout On March 25th 2020, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged States to relieve prison congestion and reduce the prison/detainee population.[1] Accordingly,. assessing alternatives to imprisonment and implementing compassionate, conditional or early release schemes has become a critical component of the COVID-19 response and many states have started releasing prisoners (for example, Iran, Argentina, Chile, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Tunisia and Turkey).[2] UNICEF and the Alliance for…

Continue reading “Leaving No-one Behind: The Human Tragedy of Children in African Prisons during COVID-19”

Takondwa Chimowa, Stephen Hall, and Bernadette O’Hare As governments around the world respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with a range of policies aimed at mitigating the economic fallout, we argue that low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) should prioritize public money creation over foreign borrowing. Experience shows that the cost of servicing foreign debt diverts resources from public services and can undermine fundamental economic, social and cultural rights, such as the…

Continue reading “Public Money Creation to Maintain Fundamental Human Rights during the COVID-19 Pandemic”