PHYSICAL DISTANCING: SIX FEET APART IS BETTER THAN SIX FEET UNDER!
Coronavirus Updates
CORONAVIRUS DASHBOARD
THIS is the 30th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act becoming law. The first part of this post is thanksgiving and celebration of the ADA found in Common Prayer, A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals and the second part of this post is a report from the ACLU of the disproportionate number of disabled people and their caregivers who have died during the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic and a call for local, state and federal governments to take specific actions to cut the number of deaths in these groups.Daily Prayers for July 26
On July 26, 1990, US President George Bush signed the world’s first civil rights law for -people with disabilities. Since its signing in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act has served as legal protection for equal opportunity in all aspects of life, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for -people with disabilities.
O Lord, let my soul rise up to meet you
as the day rises to meet the sun.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
Come, let us bow down and bend the knee : let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
Song “Freedom Train”
Make us one with your poor, O Lord : that we might see the salvation of our God.
Psalm 119:121 – 25
I have done what is just and right : do not deliver me to my oppressors.
Be surety for your servant’s good : let not the proud oppress me.
My eyes have failed from watching for your salvation : and for your righteous promise.
Deal with your servant according to your loving-kindness : and teach me your statutes.
I am your servant; grant me understanding : that I may know your decrees.
Make us one with your poor, O Lord : that we might see the salvation of our God.
1 Sam-uel 2:27 – 36 Acts 26:1 – 23
Make us one with your poor, O Lord : that we might see the salvation of our God.
Hear these words of L’Arche founder Jean Vanier: -“People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are the poor.”
Prayers for Others
Our Father
Lord, thank you for using the foolish to confound the wise and the weak ones to shame the strong. Help us live with the shrewdness of serpents and the innocence of doves. Keep our feet from fatigue, our spirits from despair, and our hands from failing to rise in praise to you. Amen.
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you;
may he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm;
may he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you;
may he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.
50% of COVID-19 deaths, but 1% of the U.S. population
30 years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law – a landmark civil rights bill making discrimination against people with disabilities unlawful and promising opportunity to live integrated lives in our communities, outside of segregated institutions. But the joy of this anniversary is muted by a pandemic that has made clear how many barriers people with disabilities still face when it comes to true equity.
Since the outbreak began, tens of thousands of deaths have occurred inside nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, and other institutions for people with disabilities – a cruel reality that is disproportionately impacting both people of color and women.
This is a grave situation and people with disabilities continue to be left behind, which is why the ACLU is doing all we can to educate activists like you as we fight for immediate change.
You'll gain a more in-depth understanding in my piece here, but in sum, here's what needs to happen on the federal and state level to help repair this deadly crisis:
Our team is urgently pushing states, governors, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement these actions – critical work which you can read more about here.
Because if nothing changes, then COVID-19 in these facilities will continue to unjustly ravage institutions, playing out across disability, racial, and gender lines. People living in these congregate settings make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, but nearly 50% of COVID-19 deaths. The staff in congregate settings – disproportionately women of color and immigrants – also face high death rates.
These facts are not coincidental. They stem from decades of indifference, invisibility, and discrimination against those who live and work in these segregated institutions. And with 30 years of the ADA and lives now at stake, we must do better – and we must do it now.
Thank you for reading,
Susan Mizner
ACLU Director, Disability Rights Project | |||
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COVID-19 Deaths in Nursing Homes are Not Unavoidable — They are the Result of Deadly Discrimination
We as a society must reckon with our relentless marginalization and de-prioritization of people with disabilities and the people who support them.
COVID-19 has ripped through nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, and other congregate settings for people with disabilities. People living in these settings make up less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, but nearly 50 percent of COVID-19 deaths.
Some have said these deaths are inevitable. Some have even called for “weeding out the weak” as part of herd mentality. But these deaths are far from inevitable. They arise from decades of indifference, invisibility, and deadly discrimination against the people who live and work in these settings. They also arise from our government’s abdication of its responsibility to regulate and monitor these segregated institutions.
Congregate settings for people with disabilities include nursing homes, psychiatric facilities, and intermediate care facilities for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Long before COVID-19, these facilities already had a poor track record with insufficient oversight, poor infection control, under-staffing, and inadequate training. Combined, these conditions created the powder keg. COVID-19 lit the match.
How has this happened? This is the first in a series of ACLU blogs addressing this crisis, in which we will break down the causes at the institutional level and the personal effect on individuals such as staff and residents. The focus today is on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and its agency, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). Together, HHS and CMS are charged with regulating and monitoring the vast majority of the institutions where we have warehoused people with disabilities. HHS is responsible for the primary funding and for ensuring the safety of people in these facilities. And it has failed miserably in the age of COVID-19.
On January 31, 2020, HHS declared a national public health emergency to respond to COVID-19. As a primary response to the pandemic, all of our medical and political leaders demanded social distancing. We closed schools and dormitories, required employees to work from home, and shuttered bars, restaurants, and ball parks. But we did not extend this disease prevention tactic to nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, and developmental disability facilities. In fact, HHS has done the opposite. It has instructed nursing homes to take new patients without first confirming that they are not infected with COVID-19, and it has waived regulations to help divert people from entering institutions.
HHS has mechanisms at its disposal to reduce the overcrowding and dangerous conditions in these institutions. It can increase its funding for Home and Community Based Services and community mental health services, so people can stay in their own homes to get support. It can encourage states to advertise a provision allowing family members — so many of whom are sheltering in place without work — to take their relatives out of nursing homes and get paid to provide their care. And, it could increase the discharged planning process to move those who wish to be back in the community to move there. But it has failed on all counts.
HHS also has obligations to step up infection control and safety for the people who cannot yet leave these institutions. But it has not required states to prioritize personal protective equipment (PPE) or testing for staff or residents, and it has failed to increase the consequences for facilities that violate infection prevention measures. As a result, these institutions, rather than being havens from infection, are ‘death pits’ — among the most dangerous places in the country during this pandemic.
And finally, HHS should provide transparency, so that individuals and families can decide for themselves whether to enter — or stay — in an institution. Instead, more than four months passed before HHS started to require nursing homes to publicly report COVID-19 infection and death rates. And even this is incomplete — as nursing homes can choose not to report deaths before May 6, and other congregate settings — such as psychiatric hospitals, group homes, and institutions for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities — have no reporting obligations at all.
Yesterday marked the twenty-first anniversary of Olmstead v. L.C., the landmark Supreme Court decision that recognized that “unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination.” The court went on to observe that institutional confinement limits every part of a person’s life, and that such confinement “perpetuates unwarranted assumptions that persons so isolated are incapable or unworthy of participating in community life.”
Today, we filed a petition calling on HHS and its agencies to meet their obligations under Olmstead and under federal law. We are asking HHS to get people out of institutions as quickly and safely as possible, to provide genuine infection prevention and control measures for those who remain, and to provide true transparency as to who is living, working, and dying in these institutions.
HHS must respond. Collectively, we have much more to do. As a society, we must reckon with our relentless marginalization and de-prioritization of people with disabilities and the people who support them. We must look at the tens of thousands of deaths inside congregate care settings as a collective, systemic tragedy. These victims of COVID-19 are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers — all of us. We must end the disregard and discrimination that took their lives and that threatens — if we do not act quickly — to take many more.
Some have said these deaths are inevitable. Some have even called for “weeding out the weak” as part of herd mentality. But these deaths are far from inevitable. They arise from decades of indifference, invisibility, and deadly discrimination against the people who live and work in these settings. They also arise from our government’s abdication of its responsibility to regulate and monitor these segregated institutions.
Congregate settings for people with disabilities include nursing homes, psychiatric facilities, and intermediate care facilities for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Long before COVID-19, these facilities already had a poor track record with insufficient oversight, poor infection control, under-staffing, and inadequate training. Combined, these conditions created the powder keg. COVID-19 lit the match.
How has this happened? This is the first in a series of ACLU blogs addressing this crisis, in which we will break down the causes at the institutional level and the personal effect on individuals such as staff and residents. The focus today is on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and its agency, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). Together, HHS and CMS are charged with regulating and monitoring the vast majority of the institutions where we have warehoused people with disabilities. HHS is responsible for the primary funding and for ensuring the safety of people in these facilities. And it has failed miserably in the age of COVID-19.
On January 31, 2020, HHS declared a national public health emergency to respond to COVID-19. As a primary response to the pandemic, all of our medical and political leaders demanded social distancing. We closed schools and dormitories, required employees to work from home, and shuttered bars, restaurants, and ball parks. But we did not extend this disease prevention tactic to nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, and developmental disability facilities. In fact, HHS has done the opposite. It has instructed nursing homes to take new patients without first confirming that they are not infected with COVID-19, and it has waived regulations to help divert people from entering institutions.
HHS has mechanisms at its disposal to reduce the overcrowding and dangerous conditions in these institutions. It can increase its funding for Home and Community Based Services and community mental health services, so people can stay in their own homes to get support. It can encourage states to advertise a provision allowing family members — so many of whom are sheltering in place without work — to take their relatives out of nursing homes and get paid to provide their care. And, it could increase the discharged planning process to move those who wish to be back in the community to move there. But it has failed on all counts.
HHS also has obligations to step up infection control and safety for the people who cannot yet leave these institutions. But it has not required states to prioritize personal protective equipment (PPE) or testing for staff or residents, and it has failed to increase the consequences for facilities that violate infection prevention measures. As a result, these institutions, rather than being havens from infection, are ‘death pits’ — among the most dangerous places in the country during this pandemic.
And finally, HHS should provide transparency, so that individuals and families can decide for themselves whether to enter — or stay — in an institution. Instead, more than four months passed before HHS started to require nursing homes to publicly report COVID-19 infection and death rates. And even this is incomplete — as nursing homes can choose not to report deaths before May 6, and other congregate settings — such as psychiatric hospitals, group homes, and institutions for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities — have no reporting obligations at all.
Yesterday marked the twenty-first anniversary of Olmstead v. L.C., the landmark Supreme Court decision that recognized that “unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination.” The court went on to observe that institutional confinement limits every part of a person’s life, and that such confinement “perpetuates unwarranted assumptions that persons so isolated are incapable or unworthy of participating in community life.”
Today, we filed a petition calling on HHS and its agencies to meet their obligations under Olmstead and under federal law. We are asking HHS to get people out of institutions as quickly and safely as possible, to provide genuine infection prevention and control measures for those who remain, and to provide true transparency as to who is living, working, and dying in these institutions.
HHS must respond. Collectively, we have much more to do. As a society, we must reckon with our relentless marginalization and de-prioritization of people with disabilities and the people who support them. We must look at the tens of thousands of deaths inside congregate care settings as a collective, systemic tragedy. These victims of COVID-19 are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers — all of us. We must end the disregard and discrimination that took their lives and that threatens — if we do not act quickly — to take many more.
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