COVID-19 in the Pacific Rim and Beyond

This volume is a collection of lived experiences of territories and economies along the Pacific Rim and beyond regarding COVID-19 policies and practices analyzed from the perspective of public health ethics. The chapters focus on public health ethics analyses of various COVID-19 policies and practices of each economy, including but not limited to:

• Policies (e.g., travel restrictions, mask implementation and lifting, vaccination rate, education, etc.)
• Practices (e.g., the spectrum of how much intervention was implemented, availability of vaccines, communication with the public, enforcement, vaccine rollout, etc.)
• Private sector initiatives vis-à-vis government programs
• Community-led interventions
• Views from the community, and influence of cultural aspects, among others.

As a general guideline, contributions start with a comprehensive account of how COVID-19 first entered the economy and how it spread over time. The papers then proceed with a normative analysis of these policies and practices, considering several elements of public health ethics, such as prevention, the common good, societal responsibility, government action, and collective effort, to name a few. Each chapter concludes by answering the question “what can be learned from these in preparing for future pandemics?”    Although there is no perfect policy or flawless practice, this work aims to learn from the experiences of these neighboring economies during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of gathering information that may be useful for the next pandemic, particularly in terms of public health ethics.