COVID-19 is a disaster for people with disabilities. Without 30-year-old law, it would be worse

The isolation can be terrifying and tragic. The stress can exacerbate mental illness and other health problems. Add the loss of mobility and independence, the disruption of routines: the beloved caregiver who doesn’t come, the day program that doesn’t open, the concern that lack of support will give families no choice but to institutionalize.

In the hospital, people who can’t speak are left with no one to communicate for them, vulnerable to the fear medical care will be rationed, given to someone deemed more worthy or valuable than themselves.

Though everyone has been suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic, people with disabilities have perhaps been the most disadvantaged, their lives the most disrupted….

…“This is another example of a very powerful way that the ADA is an important tool to stop some of the most insidious discrimination – literally discrimination that will have an impact on ‘will you live or will you die,’ ” said Alison Barkoff, director of advocacy for the Center for Public Representation, a public-interest law firm that focuses on the disabled community…Read more in USA Today