and their families’ mental and physical health. Some persons with disabilities who
were unable to care for themselves were unable to get any food because the family
they lived with was in quarantine. Persons with disabilities who hired foreign
caregivers were likewise affected, as the government discontinued the hiring of
foreign caregivers, affecting the lives and safety of persons with disabilities.
6.
The supporting measures for the vaccination plan urgently need to be
strengthened. The WHO reported that persons with disabilities who catch
COVID-19 have a higher risk of complications leading to severe illness. Before
the pandemic worsened domestically, the NHRC acknowledged the government’s
inclusion of certain specific groups of persons with disabilities and care service
providers in the government-funded vaccination program. However, accessibility
has not been considered in some of the more recent vaccination locations and the
routes leading to and from these places, which leads to the elderly having to be
physically carried into these locations by their family and persons who are hearingimpaired having to personally book sign language interpreters. It is evident that
local governments have not actively ensured that persons with disabilities have
access to the services they need during the vaccination process.
7.
Planning for long distance learning did not include implementing reasonable
accommodation measures. During the pandemic period, all school education was
conducted online. However, some disabled students were limited by hardware or
Internet speeds, or lacked reasonable accommodation measures for their individual
needs, which caused them to fall behind in their education. Though the MOE
reminded schools to actively respond to students’ needs and continued to record
issues the schools and teachers reported, it did not include disabled persons’
organizations in the conversation. Instead, the disabled persons’ organizations
themselves compiled a list of issues affecting students with different disabilities
and complained to the MOE that the long distance learning system and materials
generally lacked accessibility, and that it was nearly impossible for parents to take
on the roles of teacher assistants and student assistants to support their children in
their education.
8.
Remote work suffered from an even more severe lack of reasonable
9