*Editor’s note: Grady Duggan is a journalism student in SF State’s Journalism 575 Community Media this spring. Taught by professor Jon Funabiki, the class is a collaboration with El Tecolote.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted everybody’s world, some more than others. Certain communities have been impacted to a much greater extent, and the community of people with disabilities have been dealt with an extra layer of challenges. While life has slowed in recent weeks, the effort around people with disabilities has only picked up.

“If anything, COVID-19 has made us busier than we would be at this time of year,” said Carrie England, the Executive Director at the State Independent Living Council (SILC). 

And the coveted services that people with disabilities have depended on have been altered more now than ever. 

“COVID-19 has impacted the disabled community in many ways,” England said. “I don’t think I could possibly capture it all. It has impacted the way they live, work, and play. It has impacted how they obtain services, where they obtain services, and has interrupted medical care. For some it has meant a complete change of life.” 

Since the coronavirus has spread through the state of California since early March, ventilator rationing has been at an all-time high, and this issue is not new for many people with disabilities. 

Ligia Andrade Zúñiga is the vice president of the Center for Independence of Individuals with Disabilities. Courtesy: Ligia Andrade Zúñiga

“One of the concerns our community had was the medical rationing,” said Ligia Andrade Zúñiga, the vice president of the Center for Independence of Individuals with Disabilities. “A lot of people use ventilators to breathe normal for their everyday life. So, when there’s a shortage of that type of equipment, people are asked to give up their equipment or to donate any unused equipment.” 

However, with everything going on, Zúñiga did not know the exact number of people who were asked to give up their equipment, if at all. There is no denying that coronavirus has been problematic, and it has uncovered certain concerns within our society. The Disability Rights California organization voiced that in their letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom back in late April. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed long-standing racial and economic disparities in access to health care, technology, jobs, communication and social services,” read the letter. “These disparities intersect with disability, doubly disadvantaging adults and children with disabilities from immigrant communities, other communities of color and poor families.”

This has been evident in the numbers released by local counties. In Santa Clara County, the Bay Area’s largest county, COVID-19 cases are slanted towards minorities. As of May 16, 39 percent of cases are Latinx, and 33 percent of the county’s deaths are Latinx. Zúñiga noted that such numbers could be due to a whole bunch of scenarios that all lead to oppression towards minorities. 

“It could have something to do with, you know, systemic oppressions of people of color when it comes to inadequate health care…when it comes to documentation, like if it’s somebody that’s undocumented and they’ve been working under the table, they’re not going to qualify (for medical care),” she said. “Also, some people are afraid of asking for help because they don’t want to compromise their immigration status. If they’re trying to get their citizenship or anything like that because the Trump administration has said that anybody that’s eliciting or that receives any type of government assistance will no longer qualify to get their citizenship. So, that’s disturbing, especially right now.”

The coronavirus pandemic has brought a plethora of issues to light for the disabled community, but there could be reason to believe that this could lead to advocacy progress in the future. When asked if this could lead to more awareness for the disabled community following the pandemic, England showed optimism that some positive could come out of these shelter-in-place orders that were enacted to stem the spread of the virus.

“People with disabilities have been arguing for decades that telework as an accommodation would work,” England said. “Companies have pushed back against this. Now that we are all teleworking, this may offer opportunities for people with disabilities to work from home without the significant pushback previously received. We hope that teleworking opportunities for people with disabilities will continue once the pandemic is resolved.”