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Many countries are turning to digital aids to help manage the COVID-19 pandemic. ETH researchers are now pointing out the ethical challenges, that need to be taken into account and the issues that need careful consideration when planning, developing and implementing such tools. Handwashing, social distancing and mask wearing: all these measures have proven effective in the current COVID-19 pandemic - just as they were 100 years ago when the Spanish flu was raging throughout the world.

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung recently published a paper on the ethical challenges of digitisation written by Peter Seele, economist, philosopher and professor of business ethics at USI Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society and Dirk Helbing, professor of Computational Social Science at ETH Zurich.

For example, lay people think that the sickest patients and those on waiting lists should be treated first, while ethicists - and to some degree medical professionals - tend to have a different set of priorities.