According to a study, people with intellectual disabilities have a five times greater mortality rate from COVID-19 than the general population.
A person is said to have an intellectual disability when their capacity to learn at a typical rate and function in daily life is restricted.
To conduct the study, the team contrasted the pre-pandemic era (2015–19) with the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020 and 2021). 12.6 million adults from the general population and 187,149 Dutch adults with signs of intellectual disability were enrolled at the start of follow-up in 2015.
The Lancet Public Health published its findings in the journal, demonstrating that the group with intellectual disabilities, in particular, had a death rate from Covid-19 that was five times greater than that of the general population.
The findings, which were reported in the journal The Lancet Public Health, demonstrated that mortality from Covid-19 was five times higher in the population of people with intellectual disabilities than in the general population, particularly among those under 30 (22 times higher) and under 60 (nine times higher).
During the Covid-19 pandemic, overall mortality from all causes was 5% more than it was before the epidemic.
"Our study showed that the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been much greater than indicated by reported deaths due to Covid-19 alone. Existing mortality disparities between people with and without intellectual disabilities have been further widened compared with the period 2015-19," said the team including Dr. Maarten Cuypers, from Radboud University Medical Center, in the Netherlands.
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