Addressing the needs of persons with disabilities during COVID-19: Current challenges faced by the government It has been more than a year since the outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease-2019 (hereinafter referred to as COVID-19) 1 pandemic in the ROC, which entered a nationwide Level 3 epidemic alert in mid-May 2021 due to the pandemic worsening. All levels of government have adopted the necessary pandemic prevention and protection measures. But in response to the government’s inability to include the needs of persons with disabilities, the NHRC urges the government to refer to COVID-19 and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Guidance released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on April 29, 2021. The various mitigation measures the government has taken during the pandemic period should incorporate the idea of inclusion. The measures should attempt to ensure that persons with disabilities receive equal support and protection, rather than being ignored, overlooked, or even isolated due to their disabilities. Thus, the NHRC has raised the following questions: 1. The government did not evaluate the effects on persons with disabilities when stipulating pandemic prevention measures, nor was there sufficient involvement of disabled persons’ organizations or accessible channels for such organizations to give feedback on their needs. At the beginning of the pandemic, when the government was preemptively stipulating pandemic prevention measures, it failed to fully take into account the multiple disadvantages and special needs of persons with disabilities due to the effects of the pandemic. There was also a lack of participation and voices from persons with disabilities; hence, their rights and interests 2 were overlooked. This further 1 2 In December 2019 a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown origin was discovered in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China. On January 9, 2020, the Chinese authorities identified the virus as a novel coronavirus. The virus rapidly spread to other provinces in China and around the world. The World Health Organization (hereinafter referred to as the WHO) declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on January 30, 2020, and on February 11 designated the novel coronavirus as COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease-2019), with the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) officially naming the virus SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2). To monitor and prevent this novel infectious disease, the ROC declared COVID-19 a category 5 communicable disease on January 15, 2020. The first imported case was reported on January 21, 2020, and the first domestically transmitted case on January 28. Source: Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Category/Page/vleOMKqwuEbIMgqaTeXG8A) For example, the government advised the general public to avoid seeking medical attention at large hospitals during the pandemic. However, accessible facilities are mostly unavailable in clinics, which 5