Impacts of COVID-19 on the Deaf Community
Alex Sprague
Dr. Jenkins
PS 101
07 April 2022
Blog Post 2
An issue that has been negatively affecting the United States is COVID-19. It led to hospitals reaching capacity, a shortage of medical equipment, an economic slowdown, increased unemployment, and over a million deaths (Bauer 1). Since 2020, COVID has placed many obstacles in front of people, including the Deaf community. When the United States shut down in early March, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started leading daily press conferences in the White House to inform citizens about how COVID was progressing and the steps people needed to take to increase prevention. The press conferences provided an ASL interpreter. Other news networks and talks given by government officials outside the White House did not have one. Also, most states required a mask mandate at the beginning of 2020 when places started to open up again, which led to communication barriers between the hearing and Deaf and hard of hearing community.
Only a handful of states provided ASL interpreters when broadcasting press conferences and briefings about the coronavirus. The Heath Literacy Research and Practice conducted a study in June of 2021 which compared coronavirus information access between Deaf individuals and hearing individuals. It was concluded that “Adults who are deaf were 4.7 times more likely to report difficulty accessing COVID-19 information” (Panko 1). This affects the Deaf community because they were limited to the amount of information they could acquire to stay updated with all the mandates states were passing. The study also tested coronavirus knowledge, including “identification of accurate symptoms, preventive strategies, and planned health care navigation” (Panko 1). Panko concluded that people who are “Deaf had a higher risk factor of inadequate health literacy compared to hearing individuals at sixty-one percent versus twenty-three percent.” It was also discovered that twenty percent of Deaf participants reported difficulty accessing information related to the coronavirus (Panko). These statistics show the government did not consider the Deaf community when releasing information and put them at a disadvantage because they were unaware of all the precautions people needed to take to prevent contracting the virus. Even though the Deaf community is small in the United States, they tend to be overlooked during significant events such as the pandemic. When states began to open back up, the use of masks was required to enter certain facilities. For a Deaf person, many issues arise because facial expressions and lip-reading are a massive part of how Deaf individuals communicate with people. Adding a mask has restricted this and has made it very difficult for Deaf people to interact with hearing individuals who do not know ASL. Also, for Deaf individuals who wear hearing aids, the straps on masks get in the way, resulting in not wearing them. Masks are important to keep people safe; however, companies need to be aware of these issues to help create something that would allow communication between Deaf and hearing individuals to be more accessible.
Given that the Deaf community is so small, there were not many different perspectives regarding the issues COVID has caused. A view people tend to not think about often is how their mental health was affected while in quarantine. Many Deaf individuals already feel isolated because they have difficulty communicating with the hearing community, and many people do not make accommodations to make it easier to communicate. A study was conducted during quarantine to observe the mental health of individuals and test their levels of depression, anxiety, aggression, and fear. It was observed that participants in the first group who had no history of mental health concerns declined by half (Majali 1). Being isolated from society and when states began to open up but still had mask mandates kept Deaf individuals from being able to return to normal. This can also be a factor as to why the mental health of the Deaf community increased.
Since covid is still lurking around the corner and new strands are appearing, there is still the need for press conferences by government officials in each state. One solution to help with this issue is to provide more ASL interpreters and promote more job opportunities for government interpreters. Only six percent of all interpreters work for the government, including all languages, not just ASL. This shows that there are not enough people advocating for the Deaf community to provide interpreters to keep them informed on important issues. The barrier between masks and communicating has been challenging for Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals to converse with others, especially hearing individuals. To solve this issue, companies should create transparent masks that help make communication easier. A company called ClearMask created transparent surgical masks that “allows full visibility for optimal learning, maximizes the entire view of the face, improves access to full communication, and removes communication barriers” (ClearMask 1). Under the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), companies must provide auxiliary aid for Deaf individuals, and ClearMask does just that. This invention has made communication easier for Deaf individuals because they can see the face of who they are signing to so they can lip-read or read the facial expressions one is giving off to detect the tone of the conversation. For the hearing community, many people overlook this because you can sense the tone from the voice the person is talking in; however, when someone has hearing loss, they must rely on other factors to help them come to that conclusion. When it comes to individuals who wear hearing aids, there are solutions for them. An article titled “How COVID-19 Impacts the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Community” states: “Make sure the mask fits properly, thinner straps are better, try masks that tie around the head, and remove masks properly” (Saltsman 1). These things may be common sense, but nobody has had to live through a pandemic like this one to where they had to worry about these issues. These three solutions may seem minor. In the long run, they can help Deaf individuals stay up to date on COVID information, make communication easier, and assist with masks so it does not interfere with their hearing aids.
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