Here is a hypothetical situation concerning getting the vaccine against the coronavirus. A hospital department contacts its employees late on a Saturday evening to let them know that if they want, they can get the vaccine that evening. The only thing the department employees are told is that the vaccine expiration date is the following day--Sunday, so the vaccines must be used up quickly. Around two hundred employees show up to take the vaccine; all are wearing masks, and all are trying to practice social distancing while waiting in line. One of the organizers walks around counting heads and telling the employees in a loud voice to remember to stand six feet apart. It is only when each employee is sitting with the vaccinator that he or she is told that the vaccines had not been stored at the right temperature and that there is a question as to whether or not they will be effective at producing antibodies against the virus. In other words, showing up for the vaccine dose may mean that the trip was a wasted effort. The vaccine may work, which would be good news, and it may not work, which is not good news. The latter means waiting for a new first vaccine dose; for some employees, this is a rather bitter pill to swallow because some of them lose their place in the regular vaccine line sponsored by the city municipality where they live or the hospital where they work. The hospital department that arranged the vaccinations has apparently not contacted upper hospital management about their vaccination program arranged on the fly; in other words, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. The hospital department decides to arrange for antibody testing starting around seventeen days after the vaccination date; it will call in each employee for a blood test and test for the production of antibodies against the virus. This could take some time--both the blood collections and the antibody tests--so it is uncertain when the results of the tests will be available. In the meantime, older employees (circa sixty-five to seventy-five years old) are being called in by the city municipality to get vaccinated. The municipality has no idea that these employees have been vaccinated with a possible ineffective vaccine dose. The employees are stressed because they are unsure of what to do--wait for the department to arrange everything, or take the new vaccine dose offered them. If they don't take the latter offer, they may lose their place in line and may have to wait another month or more to get a functioning vaccine. During a pandemic, the stress factor is high and nerves are frayed. It would be best to give employees the whole story, right from the start.
If you were one of these employees and were a student in an ethics class, you might broach the following questions for discussion:
- Why weren't the employees told the whole story--that the vaccines might be ineffective?
- Why were only some few leaders told the whole story, and why didn't they inform all employees?
- Why wasn't there a general announcement that evening before vaccinations started that the vaccines might be ineffective?
- Are the results of these vaccinations going to be used in a research article of some sort? If so, all employees must consent to the use of their data in an eventual article. Some may choose not to.
- Even if the information gained from such a project is useful and informative, which it actually is, it would have been better to have fully informed employees about what they were signing up for.
- Does this type of behavior help to build employee trust in management?
This is as it turns out, a true story. While all the employees will eventually get vaccinated with a second dose if the vaccine they received proves effective, and there is good reason to believe that it is effective, it would have been far better to have fully informed all employees. Some leaders will say 'what's the big deal? It all worked out well. Why are employees dissatisfied?' The answer is that they're happy to have been vaccinated, but dissatisfied with the way it went down. It's a learning experience for all leaders. The next time, they should make sure that all employees are fully-informed. That way, it's win-win for everyone.
