February 28, 2025

Five-Year Commemoration of 

the Daily COVID-19 Disability Rights & Disasters Call

Following the first major impact of COVID spread in a nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, on February 28, 2020, a group of disability and disaster advocates from across the country began meeting to discuss the novel virus now well known as COVID-19 and its potential impact on disabled people. We hoped that COVID would end quickly, but had reason to fear that it would cost the lives of many and that a disproportionate number would be our disabled siblings. With this understanding we developed recommendations for governments to follow to mitigate the impacts, and released a National Disability Rights Call To Action on March 3, 2020 with 183 organization’s support.

On the second night of the call, we decided that 6:00pm ET would be a convenient time to meet and that we should convene daily as long as people came to calls, had information to share, and questions that needed answering. It turns out that we had a lot to say. We met each and every day from Friday, February 28, 2020, until Friday, November 1, 2024, (1,709 Zoom calls). Since then, we have met each weekday, excluding a few holidays. The call attendance has ranged over the years from a handful of people, to an average of 20 people, and at times up to 50 people; all from across the country with a commitment to the rights and needs of our disability community. 

Together, we have navigated COVID. We cheered as we received our first vaccines. We lent each other support as we contracted COVID, reminding ourselves that the illness would have been much more severe had we not been vaccinated. We mourned as COVID took the life of Michael Hickson, and indirectly took the lives of Sheryl Grossman and Kimberly Hill, who both regularly attended the meeting, and we mourned as it claimed the lives of many of our friends, family members, and other disabled siblings in the community. Always, we have focused on supporting the Disability Community in learning about COVID, COVID mitigation, and our right to have equal access to all COVID-related programs and services. We learned and relearned more science than many of us thought possible. Many who were not as familiar with civil rights laws have learned a lot, as well as strategies for advocating for our rights. 

We supported each other and the disability community through the inevitable climate change-fueled concurrent disasters, such as wildfires, excessive heat, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Now we live with COVID and constantly welcoming new members to the disability community due to long COVID. While there's a rise in H5N1 (Bird Flu) cases, a resurgence of Measles, and increasingly severe disasters amidst an unprecedented political landscape in our country.

Our calls literally would not exist without all the participants who join us. We thank you for your deep commitment to the rights of disabled people in disasters and public health emergencies, to The Partnership, and to each other.

Together, we will face whatever comes next and do whatever it takes to protect the rights of disabled people in disasters and public health emergencies.