- My daughter, Claire, has significant medical complexities.
- We've been making sacrifices for two years to keep Claire safe, even now that she's vaccinated.
- Hearing the CDC director's recent comments shattered my heart.
From the beginning of the pandemic, I worried about my daughter, Claire.
Claire loves fashion magazines, swimming, and amusement parks. She also has significant medical complexities. My family willingly gave up vacations, months of in-person school, parties, and family gatherings in order to keep Claire safe.
Even now, when Claire is triple vaccinated, we are more cautious than many others. Even though we are as anxious to return to normal as anyone, we willingly make these sacrifices because Claire is a joyful teenager, full of life, and we would like to keep it that way.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, said last week during a segment on "Good Morning America" that "the overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities."
"So really these are people who were unwell to begin with, and yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron," she said.
I had to read this twice to fully digest Walensky's comments. Could she really be saying that it was "encouraging" that only people like my daughter were dying?
The millions of people living in the United States with five or more chronic conditions probably did not find this news encouraging.
Walensky has since backtracked, saying in a tweet that the CDC is "taking steps to protect those at highest risk," which has prompted many to ask what those steps are exactly.
It made me think of everyone I know who has a disability
For parents like me who love their disabled children, this was devastating.
I imagined what a huge hole there would be in my life without Claire, without her giggles and thrill at riding roller coasters.
I thought about the entire disabled community I have come to know and love over the years, especially the children I have watched grow up through my work with Little Lobbyists — girls like Emma and Myka who deal with a long list of medical complications but who also ride horses and go to Girl Scouts.
I thought about my father, who is battling cancer but who should have years of life ahead of him.
The millions of Americans young and old who are at high risk from COVID-19 are valuable, not disposable. Their lives matter.
It's always been a struggle to convince people of the value of disabled lives
In response to Walensky's comments, Rep. Ayanna Pressley tweeted, "What we're not going to do is accept empty talking points that devalue the lives of the disabled & chronically ill."
In doing so, Pressley helped me move from being despondent to being hopeful. This was a recognition, finally, that we should be protecting the most vulnerable in our society, not leaving them to die.
It has been a struggle for Claire's entire life to combat the belief that because she is disabled her life does not matter. The pandemic laid bare just how widely held this belief is, even at the highest levels of decision-making. But it doesn't have to be this way.
Although we may not be able to save everyone, we can try. Writing disabled people off as an acceptable loss is not the answer.