10: Disabled people’s deaths don’t count
How a protected characteristic offered disabled people little protection during this pandemic
‘Less of a terrible loss’ – this was how a journalist described the COVID-related deaths of disabled people and those from more disadvantaged communities during the first wave of the pandemic. Others around the world echoed the sentiment (Neilson, 2020). We find ourselves in a situation where disabled people are most at risk of COVID-19 yet their needs have been disregarded within official responses to it globally. Lindsey Lee, a former World Health Organization technical officer, has identified three distinct but related dimensions of disabled people’s increased risk from COVID-19: (1) increased risk of contracting the disease related to reliance on daily contact in order for support needs to be met and, to residential placements in environments that make physical distancing difficult; (2) increased risk of developing a severe case due to a combination of increased barriers to healthcare; and (3) increased risk of negative secondary consequences from the COVID-19 response due to, for example, cancelled or delayed health treatment for other conditions (Lee, 2020). In developing their responses to the pandemic, governments have widely failed to consult disabled people or to consider the impacts of their strategies on the most disadvantaged in society. This is in spite of legal duties, such as the duty on public bodies in England, Wales, and Scotland to pay due regard to policy impacts on people with protected characteristics, and human rights legislation. A global report on disability rights during the pandemic drew ‘the worrying conclusion that states have overwhelmingly failed to take sufficient measures to protect the rights of persons with disabilities in their response to the pandemic.
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