2020 National Paediatric Bioethics Conference - Debate: Whether it is ethical to conduct COVID-19 challenge trials in children

Speakers: Professor Dominic Wilkinson and Professor Julian Savulescu, both from the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University, UK. Moderator: Professor David Isaacs, Clinician-ethicist and infectious diseases physician from the Children’s Hospital, Westmead, Australia.

In this session Prof Wilkinson presents arguments in favour of COVID-19 challenge trials, arguing that we have an obligation to know all we can, and that such trials would guide vaccination research. Prof Savulescu presents the case against challenge trials, on the basis that children are the wrong candidates, given their low infection and mortality rates.