Recently the US Government started to offer Covid vaccinations to children aged 12 +, and hopefully the UK and other Nation’s Goverments around the world will follow suit. While there are many differences of opinion on whether vaccinations should be given to young children, I wanted to outline some recent research highlighting the increased risk of death for people with Developmental or Intellectual disabilities. As this affects both my children; one with Autism, and the other having an Intellectual Disability, I am very keen to protect them from the virus, even more so since reading the following information.

Individuals with Developmental Disabilities/Disorders such as Autism, are more than three times as likely to die following a diagnosis of COVID-19 than others, according to a report published on March 21, 2021, in NEJM Catalyst: Innovations in Care Delivery. The study it described examined nearly 65 million U.S. patient records in 2020.

The researchers also found that those with intellectual disabilities were 2.75 times more likely to die than those without intellectual disabilities. Roughly one-third of people with ASD also have an intellectual disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on individuals with intellectual disabilities. In this study, having an intellectual disability was the strongest independent risk factor for presenting with a Covid-19 diagnosis and the strongest independent risk factor other than age for Covid-19 mortality.

The largest study of intellectual disability and Covid-19 outcomes examined, claims data from 467,773 patients who received Covid-19 diagnoses between April and August of 2020. This study found that those with developmental disabilities were over 3 times as likely to die following a diagnosis of Covid-19 and that those with intellectual disabilities were 2.75 times as likely to die following such a diagnosis. https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/asset/Risk Factors for COVID-19 Mortality among Privately Insured Patients – A Claims Data Analysis – A FAIR Health White Paper.pdf

I would like to add, that everyone should have a choice to make when it comes to receiving the vaccination, however if your child or partner has a developmental or intellectual disability, I suggest that they read the links to the following summaries before making a decision.

Thanks for reading.

Steve

#DDawareness2021