Disability rights groups have sued Queen Anne’s and Talbot counties and four other Maryland jurisdictions, accusing them of Covid-19 vaccine access discrimination against persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The suit filed by The Arc Maryland in U.S. District Court in Maryland’s Northern Division on March 15 calls out Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Somerset, Garrett and Carroll counties, and Baltimore City for excluding persons with disabilities from their online lists that indicate who is eligible to get vaccinated.
The local government-run COVID-19 information website for Talbot County, as of March 10, did not list persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities as qualifying vaccine recipients. QA’s County’s website was updated to include the group after county leaders learned of the lawsuit.
The Arc, which Disability Rights Maryland represents, said in a statement that it took legal action against the jurisdictions because “people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are not getting equal access to coronavirus vaccines.”
The organization cited the case of one woman in Baltimore City as evidence of coronavirus vaccine access inequities.
The woman, who the group said has muscular dystrophy, said she did not know she and her son, who has Down syndrome, were eligible to get Covid-19 vaccine because the city had not listed intellectual and developmental disabilities as eligible on its COVID-19 website.
