Citations: For both writing sections, make sure to reference your sources for an

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Citations: For both writing sections, make sure to reference your sources for any claims or statistics that are not your own. Use [1], [2] etc…to make references to your cited sources and include the list of your cited sources at the end. This list will not contribute towards the word count.
Include the word count for both the technical briefing and the ethical argument.
For both writing sections, make sure to reference your sources for any claims or statistics that are not your own. Use footnotes to refer to your cited sources, (including name of author and page number). Also include a bibliography with a list of your cited sources at the end. This list will not contribute towards the word count.
NOTE: This scenario is fictitious although it borrows elements from stories that have gone around, mostly unconfirmed.
Technical Briefing Element (300 words): There is great interest in developing tests for active Covid-19 infection. Most of the tests for diagnosing active disease search for evidence of the viral genome in the sample taken from the patient, usually a nasal swab. The viral genome, an RNA virus, has been published: there are databases with viral genome sequences (and variants thereof) that have been obtained from infected patients. Please describe how the Covid-19 active infection tests that use the viral genome work. Write a 300 word technical summary for someone who has taken college biology on how the tests work, including the relative strengths and weaknesses of these tests.
NOTE: the material of the technical briefing is not about antibody serology tests.
Ethical Writing Element (1000 words): At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Bay Area, there was a noticeable shortage of tests. The lack of tests in the Bay Area impacted the clinical response by preventing clinicians from distinguishing between Covid-19 and diseases with similar presentation. Covid-19 test scarcity also created confusion about isolation, contact tracing, and resource allocation for treatment and monitoring. When combined with the fear and uncertainty most people were already feeling, there were major concerns that the testing shortage could lead to major infectious spread.
To meet the need for Covid-19 testing, a student at a prestigious Bay Area university decided to develop a “home brew” test for viral genome presence in a sample. Though the student did not have access to any patient samples, they were able to simulate an infected sample by mixing normal human nasal swab samples mixed with partial nucleic acid from the viral genome (not enough to be dangerous as an intact virus, just pieces of the genome). The student developed a test that yielded the expected results on all the simulated samples. As an additional test, the student used nasal swab samples from friends who were not demonstrating any symptoms and found that their assay never gave positive results. Overall, the student concluded that their assay may be imperfect but a positive test would indicate that someone should definitely aggressively isolate themselves, contact a doctor to get a “real” test, and generally assume it was positive until proven otherwise. A negative test would also not guarantee anything but would be reassuring to the person, and might lead them to not be as aggressive as someone testing positive.
The student’s lab remained open through the pandemic and all members of the lab were very competent at all the individual steps in sample collection, isolating nucleic acid, PCR amplification, and detection of key sequences. The assay was developed in off-hours and no projects in the lab were affected by the work. Although the student did use lab resources, these were not particularly expensive, valuable or rare—the student could do 100 tests with $200 worth of lab supplies, and no work in the lab was jeopardized by this use of materials.
In your essay, you should analyze the primary ethical issues that you identify here in deciding if the student has acted ethically, or not. You should address the ethics of the student using the test on themselves, other lab members expert in these methods, family, and loose acquaintances on whom the student plans to use the 100 tests. Consider both first order consequences (i.e. the testing itself) as well as second order effects (e.g. the likelihood that more “home brewers” will follow). Are there important things the student could have done differently that would change your normative evaluation? Draw from the ethical theories (deontological, utilitarianism, etc.) to frame your answer. You are welcome to discuss multiple frameworks in your essay, but it is certainly not required.

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