NHS

• Yes.
• Yes.

What are the benefitS?

• That’s because the more people that are able to keep up to date with COVID boosters, the higher the level of immunity across the population.
• High booster coverage can help protect against surging cases or potential new variants, and help lower levels of COVID-related sickness across the population.
• Crucially, though, increased booster coverage could help reduce rates of long COVID – the risk of which rises with multiple re-infections .

But will people buy them?

• Along with colleagues, last year I conducted research on attitudes to private COVID boosters in Wales.
• If the private market for the flu jab is anything to go by, then ease of access might give COVID uptake rates a boost.
• Ultimately it remains to be seen how much demand there will be for private COVID vaccines.

Private vaccines could worsen health inequalities

• At a price of £45 per jab, those on low income are much less likely to be able to afford them.
• As such, the private sale of COVID vaccines will only serve to perpetuate health inequalities.
• They are also more likely to be negatively impacted by winter pressures and health service crises.

People should be free to choose to get vaccinated

• Vaccine passports and mandatory vaccination for health and social care workers were strongly opposed by some on the grounds that they took away people’s choice to not get vaccinated.
• Surely the same arguments made against requiring people to get vaccinated should also apply to excluding people from getting vaccinated?

Simon Nicholas Williams has received funding from Senedd Cymru, Public Health Wales and the Wales Covid Evidence Centre for research on COVID-19, and has consulted for the World Health Organization. However, this article reflects the views of the author only, in his academic capacity at Swansea University, and no funding or organizational bodies were involved in the writing or content of this article.

• The Edison Histotripsy System was measured against four distinct eligibility criteria that were required of applicants for consideration in the IDAP program.
• HistoSonics' Edison System uses proprietary technology and advanced imaging to deliver personalized, non-invasive histotripsy treatments with precision and control.
• Uniquely, the HistoSonics’ platform also provides physicians the ability to monitor the destruction of tissue under continuous real-time visualization and control, unlike any modality that exists today.
• The Edison System is indicated for the non-invasive destruction of liver tumors, including unresectable liver tumors, using a non-thermal, mechanical process of focused ultrasound.

• The UK Labour party has announced its intention to reduce its £28 billion green investment pledge to less than £15 billion if elected this year.
• A crucial question so far overlooked is what impact the cut would have on public health.

Existing government failure

• Labour promises to deliver 1.5 million homes by “blitzing” the planning system, but it has so far ignored the potential consequences for public health.
• Of course, the failure to factor in health is by no means unique to Labour policy.
• A recent academic review of government housing and transport policy found that health is notably absent, despite well-established evidence that urban spaces are making us ill.
• For many years, government housing policy has been shaped by the numeric gap between supply and demand, rather than the type or quality of the housing stock.

Promising developments

• In addition to positive developments in government, such as the Build Back Beautiful Commission, the opposition also has some promising ambitions.
• The fact that the party is making explicit this link between housing and health signal is a potentially very positive step forward.
• However, in all the furore about Labour scrapping its £28 billion pledge, this crucial link to public health has been entirely forgotten.
• This is perhaps indicative of the extent to which policymakers just don’t think about health when they think about housing.

• This research comes from the TRUUD project, a research programme based at the University of Bristol, that aims to reduce non-communicable disease (such as cancers, diabetes, obesity, mental ill-health and respiratory illness) and health inequalities linked to the quality of urban planning and development for use in discussions with government and the developer industry.
• The TRUUD research project (https://truud.ac.uk/) is funded by the the UK Prevention Research Partnership (https://ukprp.org/).
• Geoff Bates receives funding as part of the TRUUD research project (https://truud.ac.uk/), which is funded by the the UK Prevention Research Partnership (https://ukprp.org/).

• You were seen in the clinic some months ago, but still don’t have a date for the procedure.
• It is extremely frustrating, but it seems that you will just have to wait.
• However, the hospital surgical team has just got in contact via a chatbot.
• This suggests that some people would be more inclined to lie to a waiting-list chatbot.

One potential reason people are more honest with humans is because of their sensitivity to how they are perceived by others. The chatbot is not going to look down on you, judge you or speak harshly of you. But we might ask a deeper question about why lying is wrong, and whether a virtual conversational partner changes that.

The ethics of lying

• There are different ways that we can think about the ethics of lying.
• Lying can be bad because it causes harm to other people.
• Lying is also bad for us because it can lead to others being untruthful to us in turn.
• But again, that is unlikely to be a consequence of lying to a chatbot.

Fairness

• Of course, lying can be wrong for reasons of fairness.
• This is potentially the most significant reason that it is wrong to lie to a chatbot.
• If you were moved up the waiting list because of a lie, someone else would thereby be unfairly displaced.

Virtue

• This is often captured in the ethical importance of virtue.
• A virtue of honesty is also self-reinforcing: if we cultivate the virtue, it helps to reduce the temptation to lie.
• But if it does, one worry is whether it might affect our tendency to be honest in the rest of our life.

Dominic Wilkinson receives funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.