Disability-rights groups say vaccine rollout, pandemic recovery overlook millions in need
Millions of Americans with disabilities are being overlooked during the pandemic recovery, stuck at home without therapy or social programs, and struggling to book COVID-19 vaccinations.
In Connecticut, a switch March 1 to an age-based inoculation system angered advocates, who said the decision bumped special-needs residents. Disability-rights groups in Arizona are pushing for swifter access to shots, citing a higher COVID-19 death risk. Coast to coast, vaccination-booking websites that lack adaptive software are confounding people with vision problems.
“One year into the pandemic, we’re just getting around to wonder how to make vaccine sign-up universal and accessible,” Bryan Bashin, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
About 1 in 4 adult Americans, or 61 million people, have a disability that can affect mobility, cognitive function, hearing and sight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thirty years after the Americans With Disabilities Act fundamentally changed how public and private entities must treat them, the pandemic is demonstrating once again how the disabled can be forgotten, advocates say.
In Wilbraham, Massachusetts, Brad Kane and his wife have gone more than a year without home therapy for four children with autism, ages 7 to 13. Each had been getting two to four hours of attention a day, five days a week. When the pandemic hit, the sessions ended with no sign of when they’ll restart.
In February, Kaiser Health News and WebAIM, a nonprofit group that works on internet accessibility from Utah State University, identified almost 100 government vaccination websites lacking screen-reading technology for people with difficulty seeing. The count may be far higher because even some sites with the software can link to others without, according to the National Federation of the Blind, a Baltimore group that advocates for more than 7 million Americans with a visual disability.
“I should have the same options that anyone else has,” said Chris Danielson, federation spokesman. “Booking a shot is frustrating for everybody, with most people trying several times. We’re not asking for special treatment — we just want the same barriers, not more.”
Some activists have set up Facebook pages to direct people with paralysis and other conditions to states where they qualify for early shots.
In some places, advocates have gone to court in search of equal access.
Disability Rights Connecticut on Feb. 24 filed a civil-rights complaint claiming discrimination after Gov. Ned Lamont set vaccine eligibility by age. The CDC recommends a risk-based approach.
“It’s infuriating — people think that with the Americans With Disabilities Act, all disability-related issues have been magically fixed, but it’s not the case,” said Sey In, an attorney for the Arizona Center for Disability Law, which is trying to bump up appointments. He cited Thomas Jefferson University research showing that people with intellectual disabilities are almost six times more likely to die of COVID-19 than people without such a condition.