Mental health, mental capacity, ethics and the law in the context of Covid-19 (coronavirus)

Kelly, Brendan D.; Drogin, Eric; McSherry, Bernadette; Donnelly, Mary

The emergence of the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic in late 2019 and early 2020 presented new and urgent challenges to mental health services and legislators around the world. This special issue of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry explores mental health law, mental capacity law, and medical and legal ethics in the context of Covid-19. Papers are drawn from India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Portugal and the United States. Together, these articles demonstrate the complexity of psychiatric and legal issues prompted by Covid-19 in terms of providing mental health care, protecting rights, exercising decision-making capacity and a range of other topics. While further work is needed in many of these areas, these papers provide a strong frame-work for addressing key issues and meeting the challenges that Covid-19 and, possibly, other outbreaks are likely to present in the future.