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The corona pandemic altered many traditional and historical norms of society and law. COVID-19 created a humanitarian crisis in some parts of globe, while pandemic privacy and civil liberties were under threat all over world. To combat the deadly virus, individual liberty and equality were compromised. This paper focuses on how India's health problem has compromised people's right to privacy. It will highlight how strict executive policies led to the creation of a massive surveillance system in the name of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as how the absence of any policy or legal framework led to the exclusion of individuals and their families who were suspected of having the virus or caring for those who were infected with the deadly virus. The paper uses case studies and data collected from primary as well as secondary sources. The authors will also point out how the absence of privacy regulation puts millions of citizens' private information at risk of being compromised or exploited against their will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the second of two in a series. In our first paper, we presented a social justice framework emerging from an extensive literature review and incorporating core social determinants specific to mental health in the age of COVID-19 and illustrated specific social determinants impacting mental health (SDIMH) of our resettled Bhutanese refugee population during the pandemic. This second paper details specific barriers to the SDIMH detrimental to the basic human rights and social justice of this population during this pandemic. The SDIMH, as described, further informs the need for social justice measures and cultural humility in mental healthcare, public health, law, and community engagement. This work concludes with a proposed call to action toward mental health improvement and fair treatment for refugee populations in three core areas: communication and education, social stigma and discrimination, and accessibility and availability of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the first of two in a series. In this paper, we identify mental health needs and challenges in the age of COVID-19 among Nepali-speaking, Bhutanese resettled refugees in the USA. We argue for a public health justice framework that looks critically at social determinants impacting mental health (SDIMH) barriers, which negatively impact our Bhutanese population, and serves as a theoretical foundation toward public policy and law that will inform healthcare decisions and fair treatment of resettled refugees at the clinical bedside and in the community. We first describe our Bhutanese refugee population and the critical mental health issues that, for many, originated during political persecution and violent ethnic cleansing initiatives, or while living in refugee camps prior to resettlement to the USA. We present a social justice framework emerging from an extensive literature review and incorporating core social determinants specific to mental health in the age of COVID-19, which are guided by the social determinants of economic stability; neighborhoods and physical environment; education; nutrition and exercise; community and social context; healthcare system; and legal system. We illustrate specific SDIMH of our resettled Bhutanese refugees during the pandemic, followed by a second paper that details recommendations for applying the SDIMH in a collective effort to address specific barriers to mental healthcare and support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a range of responses from countries across the globe in managing and containing infections. Considerable research has highlighted the importance of trust in ethically and effectively managing infectious diseases in the population; however, considerations of reciprocal trust remain limited in debates on pandemic response. This paper aims to broaden the perspective of good ethical practices in managing an infectious disease outbreak by including the role of reciprocal trust. A synthesis of the approaches drawn from South Korea and Taiwan reveals reciprocal trust as an important ethical response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Reciprocal trust offers the opportunity to reconcile the difficulties arising from restrictive measures for protecting population health and individual rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A patient's age serves as a very useful guide to physicians in deciding what disease manifestations to anticipate, what treatment to offer for certain conditions, and how to prepare for possible emergencies. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, determining treatment options on the basis of a patient's chronological age can easily give rise to unjustified discrimination. This is of particular significance in situations where the allocation of scarce critical care resources could have a direct impact on who will live and who will die. This paper examines the fairness of recommendations contained in resource allocation guidelines in the Philippines that have implications for the way elderly patients could be treated or excluded from some forms of critical care treatment in the context of the ongoing Corona virus emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]