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COVID-19 and Intergenerational Justice: The Case of Denmark

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The Global and Social Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Part of the book series: Studies in Global Justice ((JUST,volume 1212))

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Abstract

We analyze Denmark’s COVID-19 containment policies. We argue that, despite the precautionary principle being explicitly appealed to by decision-makers at the highest political level, it is neither clear whether Danish COVID-19 policies did in fact constitute a genuine application of the precautionary principle, nor is it clear that the particular restrictions implemented ought indeed to count as precautionary when seen from a perspective that transcends the short-term emergency. Finally, we point at evidence suggesting that lock down policies had the effect of saving the primarily older group of potential COVID-19 victims while causing severe problems of loneliness, mental illness, loss of education and loss of life opportunities for children and young people. This raises serious questions of social and intergenerational injustice in relation to lock down policies.

Anne Lykkeskov is a MA in philosophy and a MA in social sciences. She worked as an academic officer for the Danish Council on Ethics for 25 years on subjects relating to practical ethics in the health sector. She is now an external lecturer at the University of Copenhagen.

Ezio Di Nucci is Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies at the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In 2019/20, average life expectancy for men was 79,5 years, and for women 83,6 years, meaning that the average male COVID-19 victim is 8 month older than the average life expectancy for men while the average female COVID-19 victim is 7 months younger than the average life expectancy for females.

  2. 2.

    Source, Denmarks Statistics https://www.statistikbanken.dk/hisb8. Accessed 15 March 2021.

  3. 3.

    Source: SSI: https://covid19.ssi.dk/overvagningsdata/ugentlige-opgorelser-med-overvaagningsdata Accessed 15 March 2021.

  4. 4.

    A relevant question that we shall not aim to answer in this article is of course whether it would be possible to design policies that would at the same time protect the vulnerable group and avoid to seriously harm the young generation. We believe designing such a policy should be in the center of the work to design approaches to future pandemics. The aim of this article is, however, the more modest one of arguing for the necessity of designing such policies.

  5. 5.

    School closures are also reported to reinforce other inequalities, notably gender inequality both in regard to mothers being charged with the primary responsibility of homeschooling (see e.g. Wenham 2020), and in respect of girls being affected most in terms of learning loss (see e.g. Burzynska and Contreras 2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Anne Lykkeskov & Ezio Di Nucci

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  1. Anne Lykkeskov
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  2. Ezio Di Nucci
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  1. Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Gottfried Schweiger

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Lykkeskov, A., Di Nucci, E. (2022). COVID-19 and Intergenerational Justice: The Case of Denmark. In: Schweiger, G. (eds) The Global and Social Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Studies in Global Justice, vol 1212. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97982-9_4

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