Disability group files civil rights complaint over vaccine plan

In the first major challenge to Connecticut’s new age-based vaccine plan, the non-profit Disability Rights Connecticut filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

claiming the policy “constitute disability discrimination” and calling on the agency to order its changes.

The complaint calls on the HHS Office of Civil Rights to “direct Connecticut to immediately revise its COVID-19 vaccine policy to include individuals with underlying medical conditions, regardless of their age, who are at increased risk of COVID-19 infection…as a priority in receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.” DRCT is also urging the Office of Civil

Rights to “advise the State of Connecticut that it must have a process for people with disabilities to request and obtain reasonable modifications” to the state’s age-based vaccine eligibility policy.

The policy announced Monday by Gov. Ned

Lamont establishes a system where all Connecticut residents yet to be immunized will be vaccinated based on their age, except teachers and child care providers who will have special clinics. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

recommends individuals with medical conditions that put them at risk for coronavirus and essential workers receive the vaccine ahead of middle age people.

Lamont said Thursday the complaint’s criticism

of the state was misdirected, pointing out the CDC’s list of medical conditions that put people at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 doesn’t include individuals with intellectual or physical disabilities.

“Their real frustration ought to be with the CDC,” Lamont said.

Residents, including those with underlying medical conditions, have been among the loudest voices questioning the governor’s new plan, which upended weeks of indications that vaccines would soon focus on these groups.

Across the country, many groups are pushing to add people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to the lists of vaccine eligible individuals that states have crafted. The Centers for Disease Control added Down syndrome to its list of high-risk conditions in late December, but each state makes its own decisions about its vaccine distribution plan.

“Connecticut’s new policy has apparently been developed in the belief that it would be easier to administer. But merely because it may be easier does not make it right,” said Deborah Dorfman, Executive Director of Disability Rights Connecticut. “The state has now put more than 1 million people ahead of individuals in their 20’s or early 30’s, for example, who have a disability that would have made them eligible to receive a vaccination just days from now.”

DRCT filed its complaint Wednesday and requested the agency investigate and issue findings on an expedited basis.

Last year, DRCT and other groups filed another complaint with the Office of Civil Rights which resulted in the state Department of Public Health agreeing to change its state policy that prevented most people with disabilities who were hospitalized from having a support person with them.