Bell, who has a mobility disability and vision impairment, said it's important to see studies highlighting the challenges that COVID-19 has caused for many people with disabilities.
The longer hospital stays and increased rates of readmission for people with disabilities persisted even after accounting for age and other factors that might explain differences. Vaccine eligibility has been driven primarily by age and medical comorbidity, they say, and there have been limited accommodations made for patients with disabilities in hospital, including not allowing external essential care partners in as visitors, especially during the first year of the pandemic.
Verma said some readmissions stemmed from complications of COVID-19, including blood clots, kidney injury and delirium. Other patients returned to hospital with treatment-related complications, including bleeding after blood-thinners. Brown said figures from health database ICES show that booster-dose uptake for adults with developmental disabilities in Ontario is "slightly lower" than that seen in the general population. She said those rates should be higher for a group more vulnerable to the virus.
"Even as we go through the pandemic and a greater proportion of the population is vaccinated, I think the message stays the same," Brown said. "Regardless of what variant we're seeing, we really need to do more to protect people with disabilities because they're experiencing greater adverse outcomes."
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