[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/7423\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EHow vulnerable groups were left behind in pandemic response\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPeople who were marginalised before the coronavirus appeared \u2013 such as migrants, poorer communities and disabled people \u2013 were disproportionately impacted by the lockdowns and other responses deployed to tackle the health crisis.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018The overall consensus is that the fault lines in society were made more obvious and in many cases deepened during the pandemic,\u2019 said Jil Molenaar, a researcher at the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. She is part of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.covinform.eu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003ECOVINFORM\u003C\/a\u003E project, which is examining how the pandemic and the response measures put in place to tackle it have impacted vulnerable communities.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018At the beginning there was some talk that this crisis would be a great equaliser as the virus could infect anyone, but now it is agreed this was definitely not the case,\u2019 said Molenaar. She and her colleagues are reviewing the response by governments, public health authorities and community organisations in 15 countries, then combining this with fieldwork and in-depth interviews with people from vulnerable populations, such as ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants or those on lower incomes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey have found that while most of the official advice on Covid-19, such as who should isolate and vaccination priorities, has focused on medical vulnerability to the virus \u2013 such as in the elderly or those with chronic illnesses. Advice tended to overlook those whose socioeconomic position, immigration status or language abilities meant they were disproportionately affected by other aspects of the pandemic.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018If you are thinking more broadly than just exposure to the virus, people with chronic illnesses are more likely to suffer from delays and disruption to ordinary routine care caused by the pandemic,\u2019 said Molenaar. \u2018People who were already living in poverty have also been disproportionately hit because of the economic crisis that has resulted.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EChildren\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThose from poorer communities with children were particularly hard hit when schools were closed during the lockdowns in different countries. Many families relied upon school meals to help provide adequate, nutritious food for their children. Those who could not afford laptops were also unable to take part in online lessons that were used to replace many classes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Children who did not have the same equipment as other children in their class were being left behind,\u2019 said Dr Tina Comes, associate professor on designing resilience at TU Delft. She is part of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.heros-project.eu\/\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003EHERoS project\u003C\/a\u003E, which has been modelling the impact of different responses to the Covid-19 crisis to help inform future decision making by local, national and international authorities in Europe.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Comes said that the models clearly show that the \u0027mixing that normally happens in a society\u0027 has been greatly reduced during the pandemic. This segregation can have serious implications. \u2018Children who were speaking a second language (for example) were suddenly not mixing with others outside their own families, so they began losing those language skills again,\u2019 said Dr Comes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe way governments and health authorities chose to communicate with communities also unwittingly led to some groups being disadvantaged, the researchers say. Early results from a survey run in the Hague, in the Netherlands by Dr Carissa Champlin and Mikhail Sirenko as part of the HERoS project found that non-native Dutch speakers tended not to engage with information on television as their main source of information. This might be because those who did not speak Dutch well struggled to understand the complex information conveyed in official press conferences, says Dr Comes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInstead, non-native Dutch speakers made primary use of the internet to get information - about 41% said they used the internet compared to 20% who used TV, while 36% of Dutch speakers used television as their main information source.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018If you don\u0027t have the same access to information, perhaps because it is not easy for you to follow a Dutch press conference, you may look elsewhere,\u2019 she said. This could have led people finding information from unreliable sources. It also \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nrl.northumbria.ac.uk\/id\/eprint\/44405\/1\/Digital%20inequalities%20in%20time%20of%20COVID19_First%20Monday.pdf\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003Eled to new forms of \u0027digital inequality\u0027\u003C\/a\u003E among those who did not have the same level of access to online information or computers, said Dr Comes. \u0027Governments should not exclusively focus on one channel but take into account that a heterogeneous population can only be reached by using a plethora of tailored and online channels.\u0027\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EUndocumented\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELanguage barriers were not the only problem faced by some immigrant communities, however. Undocumented migrants and refugees, for example, are considered vulnerable due to their legal status in the country where they live. Without official documents or health service numbers, it can then become difficult to access essential services and medical care.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018This is becoming quite relevant in the vaccination programmes now as there is a risk people will be left out,\u2019 said Molenaar.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccess to vital services was also severely restricted by lockdown measures. Dr Comes and her colleagues compared three different neighbourhoods in The Hague, in the Netherlands, and found that as people were restricted to their neighbourhoods, their access to urban services such as education and support structures varied between income groups \u2013 either because of the type of transport they had available or because of digital literacy issues as services shifted online.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018There were a lot of overlapping issues,\u2019 said Dr Comes. \u2018The people who were disproportionately affected tended to do jobs that meant they couldn\u2019t work from home, but they also have bigger families, more care responsibilities for children and face language barriers. Often these communities are very tight knit, so they are helping each other out in a network, but that was taken away by the lockdowns as people were not supposed to visit each other.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd this widening of inequality within societies around Europe is likely to persist for some time even after the pandemic subsides. Those children that have fallen behind fellow classmates in education because they struggled to access lessons online, for example, could suffer the effects of this later in life unless they are offered additional support to catch up, says Molenaar. The economic effects of the pandemic are also likely to reverberate for longer than the virus itself, and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/statistics-explained\/index.php?title=Impact_of_COVID-19_on_employment_income_-_advanced_estimates#E2.80.A6and_skewed_towards_the_left_of_the_distribution_with_low_wage_earners_having_losses_3_to_6_times_larger_for_half_of_the_countries\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003Eunemployment will hit those on lower incomes harder\u003C\/a\u003E than those who earn more.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0027There is no easy way to address these longer term effects with single top-down solutions,\u0027 said Molenaar. \u0027The key would be for policy makers and authorities to shift from paternalistic strategies \u2013 based on assumptions that \u0022we know what is best for you\u0022 \u2013 to bottom-up strategies that prioritise participation and representation, to actively engage with different groups in society and respect their agency in knowing what works for them.\u0027\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u2018Many of the pandemic preparedness plans that existed before Covid-19 didn\u2019t have details about how the responses could address the needs of different vulnerable groups.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003EJil Molenaar, University of Antwerp, Belgium \u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELearning disabilities\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne group that has been particularly hard hit by the virus are those with learning disabilities. In some countries, such as the UK, death rates among people with learning disabilities were \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/people-with-learning-disabilities-had-higher-death-rate-from-covid-19\u0022\u003Esix times higher\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;than in the general population in the first wave of coronavirus.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018In the data we have today, there is good evidence that people with disabilities and especially those with intellectual and learning disabilities, are being quite badly hit by Covid-19,\u2019 said Dr Jessica Dimka, a biological anthropologist at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr Dimka has been studying how the 1918 influenza pandemic \u2013 which claimed more than 50 million lives as it swept around the world \u2013 impacted disabled people. Her project, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cordis.europa.eu\/project\/id\/841925\u0022\u003EDIS2\u003C\/a\u003E has been using historical records from mental health institutions in Norway alongside data on people with disabilities living in northern Sweden during the 1918 pandemic. Combining this with computer modelling, she is hoping to look at how the disease itself spread among these groups\u0026nbsp;and also how they were affected by social factors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EData from both the 1918 pandemic and the one happening today suggests that people with disabilities should feature far more prominently as an at-risk group in public health responses to Covid-19 and future pandemics, according to Dr Dimka.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018If you look at the vaccine recommendations in Norway, and I\u2019m sure it will be true for a lot of different countries, the emphasis is on high-risk individuals,\u2019 said Dr Dimka. While a couple of learning disabilities do feature in official vaccination recommendations, most do not and the advice is often not consistent, she says. \u2018One of the things that has been most striking is that it feels like we didn\u2019t learn a whole lot from past pandemics.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELessons\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-020-02341-1\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003Erisk of pandemics likely to increase\u003C\/a\u003E in the future, both Dr Comes and Molenaar agree there are important lessons to be learnt about how vulnerable groups are treated.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018In terms of crisis communication, it took too long for people to realise there are lots of people who are not able to access or understand this official information,\u2019 said Molenaar. \u2018Many of the pandemic preparedness plans that existed before Covid-19 didn\u2019t have details about how the responses could address the needs of different vulnerable groups. Civil society was left to pull a lot of the weight in the early stages.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile many communities set up neighbourhood initiatives to help out those who were struggling during the pandemic, there was little coordination between them. \u2018We saw a lot of the initiatives that sprang up were very fragmented and not really connecting with each other,\u2019 added Dr Comes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe key, all three researchers say, is to have plans in place before a pandemic hits as then vulnerable communities won\u2019t be overlooked or missed out in the emergency responses that follow.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018The key thing is to be aware that some people are going to struggle more,\u2019 added Molenaar. \u2018And have a plan.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis story is part of a \u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/horizon-magazine.eu\/article\/european-science-next-generation.html\u0022\u003Eseries\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cem\u003E in which we hear from the next generation of scientists and researchers who are working to tackle global challenges.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cem\u003EDiscussions of preparedness lessons from Covid-19 and how research and innovation can help to leave no one behind in the post-pandemic recovery will take place on 23 June as part of the European Commission\u2019s \u003C\/em\u003E\u003Ca tabindex=\u0022-1\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/research-and-innovation\/en\/events\/upcoming-events\/research-innovation-days\u0022 href=\u0022https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/research-and-innovation\/en\/events\/upcoming-events\/research-innovation-days\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EResearch and Innovation Days conference\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cem\u003E. \u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cem\u003EIf you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-dfifyyb1-ainlm4urjrynan8wbdumgcrtgmvljx-z30\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-DfifyYB1-AINLm4urJrYnAN8wBDuMGCrtgmvlJx_z30\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]