COVID Vaccination Challenges: Ethical Imperatives and Local Realities
February 24, 2021
As implementation of national and global COVID-19 vaccination campaigns moves into higher gear, there is much to learn from lived, ongoing experience of religious communities. These lessons have applications from very local to global situations, reaching from agendas of communities and congregations to the G20 leadership, placing new demands for cooperation and partnerships. Issues of equitable allocations and access, practical mechanisms to meet urgent and complex logistic challenges, communications about needs and process, and addressing doubts and fears are playing out in real time, as are relationships between government entities and religious communities. Religious roles are interwoven into each challenge, drawing on religious leaders as trusted messengers and on practical options such as offering vaccination sites.