On a typical day before the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Francoise Baylis could be found on foot around Halifax. Spending lots of time out in the world is part of her research methodology, she says, because it allows her to see how ideas play out among real people. “I think. I think some more. I read. I go out into the world. I experience. I test out this idea. I come back, and I think some more,” she says. That’s just what she’s trying to encourage readers to do.

These days, Dr. Baylis is thinking mostly about the current global health crisis. As she considers the ethics of physical distancing, clinical triage protocol and immunity passports, she says she keeps returning to the question at the heart of her latest book, Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing: What kind of world do we want to live in?

In the book, Dr. Baylis sketches out her vision “I want to live in a world that promotes equity and justice, and celebrates difference; a world that embraces neighbourliness, reciprocity, social solidarity and community; and a world that values collegial as opposed to competitive relations. In this imagined future world,” she writes, “we all flourish as we pursue the goal of building a better world for us all.”

‘Immunity passports’ ― certificates issued to people who have had COVID-19 and are presumed immune to the disease ― would cause more problems than they solve, according to two bioethicists in a Nature Comment piece published today, Thursday May 21, 2020.

Françoise Baylis, a University Research Professor at Dalhousie University and Natalie Kofler, a lecturer at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, argue that “any documentation that limits individual freedoms on the basis of biology risks becoming a platform for restricting human rights, increasing discrimination and threatening rather than protecting public health.”

Scientists don’t yet know how or whether infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus confers immunity, or how long it lasts. Serological tests that measure SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the blood are thought to be unreliable ― many give false positives or false negatives. Moreover, the level of testing needed to certify people as free to work might never reach more than a few per cent of a population, a proportion too low to boost the economy.  

 In addition, immunity passports could extend discrimination to biological traits. They must be coupled to ‘track and trace’ systems, which will erode privacy. Tests are in limited supply, so are likely to go to privileged groups and not those who need them most ― the marginalized and the poor.  

Congratulations to the Canadian Immunization Research Network, who received $10.3 million over two years, and $5 million ongoing from the Government of Canada to support vaccine-related research and clinical trials, and to enhance Canada’s capacity to monitor vaccine safety and effectiveness.