Table 3 Ethical dimensions and problems

Equity

International research collaborations to include/inclusion of low prevalence countries become less attractive

Individual liberty

Patient’s liberty to choose which study to participate when there are multiple studies concurrently

Privacy and confidentiality

The risk of identification

Proportionality

Disproportionate cessation and continuation rules for other research projects

Public protection

Research being re-directed outside hospital protective frameworks and into communities and care facilities with greater COVID numbers

Movement restrictions may hinder research participation

Provisional of care

Patients may be subjected to oversampling when the sample size is small

Reciprocity

Difficult to align and maximize skills of redeployed personnel

Diminished perception of self-benefit among health staff

Stewardship

Research may be more scrutinized and be harder to substantiate in terms of public good

Trust

Forced sharing of samples by competing researchers and forced collaborations amongst competitor research groups