Amid Omicron Variant Spread, UN Chief Says Persons with Disabilities among Hardest Hit by COVID-19 Pandemic

Berlin, Germany - November 04: Antonio Guterres, High Commissioner for Refugees of UNHCR, attends a press conference in german foreign office on November 04, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Michael Gottschalk/Photothek via Getty Images)
While marking the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Friday, United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, said those with a disability were among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
International days and weeks are, however, occasions to educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilise political will and resources to address global problems and to celebrate and reinforce the achievements of humanity. The existence of international days predates the establishment of the United Nations, but the UN has embraced them as a powerful advocacy tool.

Disturbingly, there are one billion persons in the world with disabilities. Out of this number, 80% of them which is 800 million live in developing countries. And, while an estimated 46% of older people aged 60 years and over are people with disabilities, one in every five women is likely to experience disability in her life, just as one in every 10 children is a child with a disability.

Meanwhile, as scientists continue to investigate the Omicron COVID-19 variant, World Health Organisation (WHO) also on Friday was urging countries not to panic but to prepare for its likely spread.

Heralding South Africa’s and Botswana’s decision to report the appearance of the Omicron coronavirus mutation last month, the UN health agency repeated that it will take another two weeks before more is known about how transmissible and how dangerous it actually is.

Speaking in Geneva, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier stressed that data suggesting that Omicron was highly transmissible was only preliminary.

Unnecessary travel bans

He also repeated WHO advice against blanket travel bans, except for countries whose health systems were unable to withstand a surge in infections. “It is much more preferred to prepare your country, your health system to possibly incoming cases because we can be pretty sure that this Omicron variant will spread around”, he said.

The Delta mutation – declared a variant of concern this summer – is now “predominant, Lindmeier added, “with over 90 per cent all around the world. This is how this virus behaves and we will not most likely be able to keep it out of individual countries.” The WHO official also cautioned against knee-jerk reactions to reports that Omicron had continued to spread.

“Let’s not get deterred right now, let us first get as much information as possible to make the correct risk assessment based on the information that we will have and then let’s move on. Let’s not get completely worried or confused by individual information which are all individually important, but which need to be brought together in order to assess together”, he said.

The development comes as WHO said that it was sending a technical surge team to South Africa’s Gauteng province to monitor Omicron and help with contract tracing, amid a spike in coronavirus re-infections.

For the seven days leading to November 30, South Africa reported a 311 per cent increase in new cases, compared with the previous seven days, WHO said on Thursday as cases in Gauteng province, where Johannesburg is located, have increased by 375 per cent week on week. Hospital admissions there rose 4.2 per cent in the past seven days from the previous week. And COVID-19-related deaths in the province jumped 28.6 per cent from the previous seven days.

Announcing the surge team deployment, WHO Regional Emergency Director for Africa, Dr Salam Gueye, noted that just 102 million Africans in Africa – 7.5 per cent of the continental population, are now fully vaccinated and that more than 80 per cent of the population has not received even a single dose. “This is a dangerously wide gap”, he said.

In a statement, WHO said that South Africa is reportedly seeing more patients contracting COVID-19 after having already been infected, in a way it did not with previous variants, citing a microbiologist from the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

Working with African governments to accelerate studies and bolster the response to the new variant, the World Health Organization (WHO) is urging countries to sequence between 75 and 150 samples weekly.

“The detection and timely reporting of the new variant by Botswana and South Africa has bought the world time”, said WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, adding, “we have a window of opportunity but must act quickly and ramp up detection and prevention measures. Countries must adjust their COVID-19 response and stop a surge in cases from sweeping across Africa and possibly overwhelming already-stretched health facilities.”

However, for the UN chief, “COVID-19 has laid bare the persistent barriers and inequalities faced by the world’s one billion persons with disabilities.” Arguing, Guterres said a disability-inclusive pandemic response and recovery should be guided by persons with disabilities themselves, adding that it should also “forge partnerships, tackle injustice and discrimination, expand access to technology and strengthen institutions to create a more inclusive, accessible, and sustainable post-COVID-19 world.”

Human Rights

To respond to the needs of the one billion persons with disabilities, the UN Secretary-General is urging all countries to fully implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Governments, he said, should also work to increase accessibility, and dismantle legal, social, economic and other barriers with the active involvement of persons with disabilities and their representative organisations.

“Realising the rights, agency, and leadership of persons with disabilities will advance our common future”, he argued. “We need everyone, including persons with disabilities on board, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”, and concluded by saying that, around the world, persons with disabilities and their representative organisations are taking action to make good on a key demand: “Nothing about us, without us.”

Digital world

In her message, Director-General of UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) highlighted how the pandemic had battered those with disabilities.  “As part of our lives moved online, confinement measures have brought to the fore another series of inequalities affecting people with disabilities: the inequalities relating to technology and the digital world”, Audrey Azoulay said.

She noted that, according to the latest Education Monitoring Report (GEM), only 68 per cent of countries have a definition of inclusive education and just 57 per cent mention all the multiple marginalised groups.

For Azoulay, these are some of the issues that should be discussed at the next UN-backed Global Disability Summit, which Ghana and Norway are co-hosting in February.

Events

Across the world, several events took place to mark the day. In Dubai, the UN organised an event entitled Shaping an Inclusive Future for All: Leading with Determination, at the World Expo there.

UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) also on Friday joined forces to debate the theme Reducing Inequalities Through Technologies: A Perspective on Disability Inclusive Development.

The Office of the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Disability and Accessibility, in partnership with the Permanent Mission of Chile, is focusing on  “Leadership of the new generations: Children and adolescents with disabilities and their voices post COVID-19”, in another virtual event taking place on Friday.

The UN also marked the day at its offices in Geneva and Bangkok.

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