The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing

In American Sign Language, the sign for the Covid-19 virus makes good sense—open hand over a fist—reminding us of the circular shell and protruding spikes of the coronavirus. As of this writing, Covid-19 has sickened 1.22 million Americans causing 71,065 deaths, more than any nation on the planet.

With stores shuttered and people on a pandemic lockdown, Covid-19 is not your run-of-the-mill virus. It’s nasty, deadly, and very deaf un-friendly. 

The deaf and people with hearing loss depends on their lip-reading skills to understand hearing relatives and friends; a difficult task even during the best of times. With the ubiquitous masks, it’s impossible to understand and follow conversations. Not only that, but the deaf community has a challenging access to information. 

In one deaf friendly state, North Carolina, a sign language interpreter is at every Covid-19 briefing. (I’ve yet to see one here in California.) And, yes, most news channels have captioning, but the captioned words and spoken word often don’t match. Also, the captioning flies by so fast one has to be a super speed reader in order to keep up. One reason for this is the fact that many TV stations generate captions with a computer program rather than a trained expert. 

Howard A Rosenblum, CEO of the National Association of the Deaf says, “The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandates television captioning, which is done for national news, but most local news isn’t {captioned}.” More often than not, deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans are not getting the life-saving health messages everyone else depends on.

To fill this vacuum, deaf organizations are producing and distributing information for the hearing-impaired community. For example, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services have set up Covid-19 videos in ASL with captions. 

Covid-19 strikes the deaf and hard-of-hearing like it infects anyone else, but overwhelmed doctors and nurses may have a difficult time accommodating this community’s communication needs. To meet their needs, the National Association of the Deaf created a captioned video in ASL on communicating with medical personnel during the pandemic. 

Since the pandemic struck, hospital rules have changed due to the overwhelming presence of the coronavirus. Now, every health professional is wearing mask and gloves and is too hard pressed to provide services like an ASL interpreter. Under the new rules, family members are not permitted to accompany their deaf relative. During the pandemic, a visit to the hospital will be intense isolation. Doctors and nurses who do speak to you will be behind a curtain or glass shield wearing their mask and gloves. 

God forbid you have to go to the hospital, be prepared. First, have a printed page letting the healthcare professionals know you’re deaf. Indicate on that paper that you’ll be relying on software on your smartphone, a VRI app or speech to text app, so you’ll need to use the hospital Wi-Fi and be placed in a room with strong Wi-Fi connection. 

The CSD (Communication Services for the Deaf) has a website providing an important resource about Covid-19.  including an ASL Hotline, a relief fund, and resources to combat your Covid-19 blues. 

Like all hard times, this pandemic will pass, and hopefully people will learn from it. From personal experience and observation, deaf people have a lot of patience. If anything, the coronavirus quarantine will teach the hearing a bit of patience, too. Let’s just hope the light at the end of the tunnel may be improved communication for everyone.