Chapitre 5. L’impact de la pandémie de COVID-19 sur l’évolution du paradigme éthique de la médecine clinique en Russie (« à la guerre comme à la guerre »)

Abstract

The CОVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for the transformation of the ideas of the existence of global ethics in favor of real moral pluralism, exposed the problem of abandoning the principles of personalized medicine in favor of public health ethics (collective ethics of civil society). The authors sequentially analyze the objective factors that influenced the change in the moral paradigm of the clinical medicine in Russia: the peculiarities of the course of infection, the lack of resources in the health-care sector, the inability to use advanced treatment methods in different groups of patients, the protection of medical workers, the provision of emergency and planned surgical interventions, and the prevention of further spread of infection. In addition, the moral consequences of the use of administrative measures to limit the spread of the pandemic are given: restriction of social contacts, the use of personal protective equipment, retraining of specialists, re-profiling of the bed fund, leveling problems of communication with colleagues, patients and students. Special attention is paid to the problem of “anti-vaxxers”, representing a significant part of society and hindering the implementation of the vaccination program of the population. We believe that active and passive protest against vaccinations lie not in a rational plane, but in an emotional one, in an immanent distrust of the state and its institutions. Thus arises a secondary ethical problem of the state’s responsibility for the life and health of every citizen, regardless of their beliefs. Contradictions in the moral principles of individual strata of the population (including groups like those who agree to get vaccinated, those who doubt, the indifferent ones, “active anti-vaccinators”) currently seem irreconcilable due to the state’s detachment from solving moral problems.Ethic divergence in the context of the pandemic has become real, stable and difficult to overcome, while the claims of a single, global, global bioethics are being questioned. The COVID-19 pandemic has formulated the ethical task of the 21st century, which will have to be the development of public policy and practice of clinical medicine in the context of serious moral contradictions and significant bioethical differences.