The concept of disease in the time of Covid-19

Philosophers of medicine have formulated different accounts of the concept of disease. Which concept of disease one assumes has implications on who can be judged as having a disease (disease judgement) and on what counts as being sick (social rights and duties of the person). In this article we consider an ideal diagnostic test for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection with respect to four groups (people who are positive and asymptomatic; positive and symptomatic; negative; untested) and show how different concepts of disease impact on the disease and sickness judgements for these groups. The suggestion is that sickness judgements and social measures akin to those experienced during the current COVID-19 outbreak presuppose a concept of disease containing social harm or risk of harm as a component. We indicate the problems that arise when adopting this kind of disease concept beyond the emergence.