Life under lockdown means that everyone faces challenges every day. But some of us have experienced this all our lives. As a wheelchair user there have been countless times I’ve had to turn down invitations because the venue – or public transport – just isn’t accessible. For people like me, isolation is a pre-corona concept; something that many disabled people battle against daily.
In case you think I’m exaggerating, a recent study by the charity Scope reported that one in five 18-34-year-olds has avoided talking to a disabled person because they weren’t sure how to communicate with us. Imagine that on a daily basis.
Social distancing is something that most disabled people have felt at least once in their life. For example, the playground game ‘it’ has never been much fun for us. Not just because we couldn’t keep up, but because it took on a whole new meaning: if you touched any of us, you would catch ‘it’ automatically, as if we were already infected.
Even the term ‘social distancing’ echoes the discourse of early twentieth century eugenics. The aim of eugenics was to eliminate human physical and mental defects altogether, in order to build a ‘stronger society.’ This meant that those born ‘defective’ would be segregated from everyone else in the name of ‘perfecting’ the human race.
So you see, for centuries people with disabilities have been set apart from the rest of society. Everyone else has been ‘social distancing’ from us, as if we ourselves were a virus.
Ironically, in some ways we are better equipped to cope emotionally and adhere to social distancing guidelines because we have experienced something like this throughout our lives. But in practical terms we are worse off than before, because our limitations have now been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Grocery delivery is something I have always relied upon; suddenly everyone is going for it, and somehow I’m at the back of the queue. I haven’t been allocated a delivery since the lockdown was announced. I’ve had no choice but to search out a supermarket that actually has an electric wheelchair, then struggle with reaching for food and carrying it home. I couldn’t stockpile even if I wanted to!
I’m not even meant to be at the supermarket. Due to the nature of my disability I should be self-isolating. Restrictive lung disease is a common threat to people with Pseudoachondroplasia and other forms of dwarfism. But despite this, we’re not recognised nor registered as vulnerable. Indeed the government’s interpretation of what constitutes vulnerability is extremely narrow. Granted, we may not be as susceptible as those who are undergoing chemotherapy, but such physiological vulnerability as we do have is seriously compounded by social factors, i.e. an infrastructure built for the able-bodied without considering us, and frequent lack of consideration on the part of the general public.
The Equality Act 2010 establishes that if an impairment has a substantial effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, then you are to be protected from forms of discrimination that make your life harder.
In current circumstances, in order for supermarkets to fulfill their legal obligations, they need to be far more systematic in prioritising the disabled for home delivery slots along with the elderly.
Waitrose are being hailed as the best performers on this, but they are also the most expensive. With one fifth of disabled people ordinarily out of work, how many of us can afford their top-of-the-range prices? Tesco offers a one-hour morning shopping slot set aside for us and the elderly. Is that it? A significant number of disabled people live with chronic pain, making it harder to get out of bed in the morning, not to mention the length of time and agony that goes into getting dressed. So don’t be surprised if we’re not in store at the crack of dawn.
In this time of crisis, disabled people are truly ‘vulnerable’, even if we are not defined as such by the government. What angers me most is that much of our vulnerability is not a direct result of disability; it derives from social factors which could have been addressed if only those in power had shown us more consideration.
