The first report from the Covid-19 inquiry came out yesterday and told us what many of us already knew – the government had failed to prepare for a pandemic and in turn, had failed to protect the public.
Covid-19 Inquiry: the wrong pandemic
Chair of the inquiry, baroness Heather Hallett said:
“Never again can a disease be allowed to lead to so many deaths and so much suffering,”
One group of people disproportionately failed was disabled people. In England six in 10 covid deaths were disabled people, this rose to seven in 10 in Wales.
At the start of the pandemic, disabled people were told to shield whilst given no other support. Whilst the government focused on “getting back to normal” we feared that we’d be left to die if ‘do not resuscitate orders’ were put on us without our knowledge.
Every time “freedom day” and more restrictions were loosened we were treated like we wanted people caged up indoors forever, whilst we were traumatised from seeing our community decimated.
Whilst they partied, we feared that we would be one of the bodies that would be piled high.
Whilst the report focuses on preparedness for the pandemic, it’s still pretty clear how little fucks Boris and his cronies gave about allowing disabled people to live.
Vulnerable what?
The report wholly criticises the government for preparing for the wrong pandemic – a flu outbreak – but even then they weren’t bothered about protecting “vulnerable” people (I hate that term btw).
The 2019 National Security Risk Assessment made only passing comments on the risks associated with age and health. The influenza-type pandemic scenario only included a short section on the “impact on vulnerable groups”.
The report draws on a familiar stereotype for disabled people, that we’re a burden to society and service:
It was too narrowly drawn and had too limited focus on the impact on public services and staff capacity.
The main problem with any plans for “the vulnerable” was that none of them could decide on a definition of “vulnerable”. I wish I was joking but one of the recommendations is literally for the government to decide what vulnerable means.
So whilst they were lumping us all in as “vulnerable” and using it as an excuse for us dying, none of them could actually agree on what that meant. Which, as it was so vague, meant it was easier to apply to people who weren’t more susceptible to infection such as learning disabled people.
But there’s one thing that isn’t being covered in any of the inquiries – the part the media played.
Where’s the corporate media’s accountability?
In all my years reporting on the issues disabled people face, I’ve never felt as ignored by editors as I did during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here I was – a disabled journalist with a history of writing about my experiences – whilst a deadly pandemic was ripping through the world and mostly affecting disabled people, and suddenly nobody wanted to know.
Whilst I and other disabled journalists and activists were trying to get the word out about our community having ‘do not resuscitate orders’ put on them in hospitals, the media focused on how awful it was to be “locked up”. Whilst we were trying to shout about how six in 10 deaths in England were of us, I saw how much of the focus was on “getting back to normal”.
Newspapers held countdowns to Freedom Day. They ran columns deriding mask wearers and vaccine takers, which were contradictory to their waning coverage of why masking and vaccines were still important. They focused on the mental health of non-disabled people and disregarded ours.
Figures like Andy Burnham were mocked when northern communities were subjected to continuous changes to lockdown rules whilst receiving little support.
Last year I chaired a panel of media representatives at the Disability Wales Conference. It was absolutely brutal but so lethargic to see them get absolutely ripped into by hurt members of the disabled community who had been let down by their reporting of Covid.
Covid-19 Inquiry exposes a disease at the heart of it all
But it’s not enough to hold just a few people to account. This is a vile disease within the heart of corporate media that puts white, non disabled, straight, and well-off people before anyone else and uses its power to convince the public that anyone raising concerns is a threat to their way of life.
Whilst governments are being held to account at the Covid-19 Inquiry (though they won’t face any justice), so too must the corporate media who turned the public against disabled people and made it acceptable for us to die – so they could go to pubs.
Featured image via the Canary
