The Covid-19 pandemic has brought on significant changes in the lives of both non-disabled people and individuals living with disabilities. Throughout and following quarantine, screening, self-imposed isolation, or testing positive for the virus, people with disabilities, in particular, have experienced unequal access to and exclusion from response resources, along with anxiety and depressive symptoms at varying degrees depending on their functional limitations, as well as a higher burden of care on their families. Disability care has been recognized as crucial not only for people with disabilities, who rely heavily on it in much of their daily life, but also for their families. This study assesses the limitations of the current disability care system and, in light of how the system fell short during the pandemic situation in Korea and by drawing lessons from how the UK and the US responded to the needs of people with disabilities during the height of Covid-19, proposes the direction in which Korea should be going. Disability care in these times of endemic Covid-19 should be structured in a way that promotes, with a focus on “locality,” flexible community-led care and the participation of disabled community members themselves.
