I am fortunate enough to work for
a large and successful company that’s
riding out the pandemic without
too many problems. Unusually for a
corporation of its size, it appears to
really care about its employees’ well-
being, or at least it makes an eff ort.
To this end, the company is off ering
free weekly Covid-19 tests to employees
who can’t work remotely because of their
particular job function: e.g., R. & D. or
package handling. I’m authorized to work
in the offi ce, and therefore considered
part of this group. But I can and do work
exclusively from home. Still, my status
means the company off ers me tests, to be
self-administered and mailed in from home.
(I’m in my 50s and in good health, and
though I have a few mild risk factors, I
am not in a medically at-risk population.)
I’m pondering two questions.
Th e fi rst is, although the Covid tests are
not mandatory, the company strongly
encourages signing up for them. Access is
explicitly not contingent on work location,
only on job category. Still, because
I’m self-isolating pretty diligently, would
I be accessing tests under false pretenses?
My second concern is this: Th ough
my company has the resources,
both fi nancially and logistically, to secure
enough tests for its employees, I fear
I’m taking advantage of that capability,
especially when there is a shortage
of tests nationwide. I know that there’s
little chance my personal test would
be redirected to someone who needs
it more if I don’t take it. But on the
other hand, is it ethically appropriate
for me to forgo testing in the absence
of a compelling personal need?
I am well aware that this is a very
privileged question springing
from an absurdly privileged situation,
but that doesn’t excuse me
from trying to do the right thing.Name WithheldIn an ideal world — or simply a better
governed America — you wouldn’t have to
think about this question; tests wouldn’t be
a scarce resource. Of course, there would
still be a question about waste even if we
were a country like Denmark, where, at the
height of the pandemic, more than 50,18 11.8.20 Illustration by Tomi Um
Illustration by Louise Zergaeng PomeroyThe Ethicist By Kwame Anthony Appiah
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Send an email to
ethicist@nytimes
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to The Ethicist, The
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Eighth Avenue, New
York, N.Y. 10018.
(Include a daytime
phone number.)Célèste writes: At
least once a day, my
husband will push his
phone into my face
insisting that I watch
a comedy sketch or a
clip from a late-night
show. Sometimes
he’ll hit play before
I can object, even if
I’m in the middle of
a task. Please order
him to simply tell me
about the video, or
send a link that I can
watch at my own
convenience, if and
when I’m interested.
————
I can’t stop myself
from pushing my
own phone into my
own face, so I’m not
sure I can help. But
yes: Your husband
is a terrible person.
There’s so little within
our control here at
the wane of 2020
(and civilization,
maybe?); the amount
of poison internet
light we pour into our
eyes should be an
inviolable personal
choice. Especially if
he is forcing you to
fake laugh along to
some comedy sketch
while he watches
you. That’s nearly
as bad as forcing
someone to listen
to a song, and both
should be banned by
The Hague.Bonus Advice
From Judge
John Hodgmanpeople a day — out of a population of nearly
six million — got tested. (Adjusting for pop-
ulation size, that’s the equivalent of nearly
three million a day here; twice our actual
maximum.) But as you’re aware, the waste
you’re worrying about is, as the lawyers
say, ‘‘de minimis.’’ The marginal cost to your
company, and the marginal eff ect on our
overall testing program, aren’t signifi cant.
The interesting question is what the
upside would be of your being tested
regularly, given that you’re isolated and
presumably adhering to the recommend-
ed precautions. To think about this, we
must consider the accuracy of the tests.
Assuming we’re talking about PCR
tests, the false positive rate is extremely
low. (When these happen, it’s typically
because the specimens were mishandled
in the lab.) By contrast, the false negative
rate is signifi cant, especially during the
fi rst week after infection. (These are typ-
ically due to the fact that the virus isn’t
yet present in the sample in detectable
quantities.) Are these test results useful
to someone who, like you, has a very low
baseline risk of infection?
Not very. Because you’re isolating and
not working in the offi ce, you don’t need to
worry about the risk you pose to co-work-
ers. On the other hand, a negative result
could unduly increase your confi dence
that you’re in the clear. Suppose you have
a 5 percent chance of contracting the
virus. (A reasonable estimate would be
way lower, but let’s simplify the arithme-
tic.) According to a study in the Annals
of Internal Medicine , the probability of a
false negative PCR result is 100 percent on
the fi rst day of infection and decreases to
20 percent by the eighth day. But estimates
of false negatives vary widely; let’s simpli-
fy and say your false negative rate is going
to be 30 percent, and that your false pos-
itive rate is zero. Bayes’s theorem shows
that a negative test result should increase
your confi dence that you’re uninfected by
about 3.5 percent — which is reassuring,
but not in a life-changing way.
So why bother availing yourself of the
test? Well, there are other factors to con-
sider. One is that if your employer has the
data for all the workers in your group, in
the offi ce and out, it can make better deci-
sions. Having an overall picture of the rate
of infection tells them something about
patterns of employee behavior. If people
pull out because they think they’re behav-
ing well, that’ll skew the data. It could be