EClinicalMedicine, a clinical journal published by the Lancet, urging the Biden administration to amend the priority guidelines for COVID-19 vaccinations to include all people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DD; Hotez et al., 2021).
It is critical that the entire I/DD population gains access to priority vaccines. But it’s also important that we consider why they were excluded in the first place.
People with I/DD, including individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, seizures, developmental delays, and/or intellectual impairment, comprise between 1% and 2% of the U.S. population. They are particularly susceptible to COVID-19, demonstrating more severe illness, greater risk of hospitalization, and almost twice the case fatality rates for individuals ages 18 to 74 (Turk et al., 2020). People with I/DD may experience difficulties following social distancing guidelines