REGARDING ACCESSIBILITY OF AT-HOME COVID-19 TESTS FROM THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
A2023-01: REGARDING ACCESSIBILITY OF AT-HOME COVID-19 TESTS FROM THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Adopted In : 2023
Topics : Medical
WHEREAS, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), the primary agency charged with Protecting, maintaining and improving the health of all Minnesotans, indicates that its vision is " health equity in Minnesota, where all communities are thriving and all people have what they need to be healthy"; and
WHEREAS, MDH has partnered with blindness organizations during the past three years, receiving feedback on nonvisual accessibility of Covid-19 testing; and
WHEREAS, several options for more accessible at-home COVID tests now exist, giving blind Americans the ability to administer such tests privately and independently; and
WHEREAS, the federal government currently offers more accessible at-home tests through its free distribution program; and
WHEREAS, a document entitled Best Practices for the Design of Accessible COVID-19 Home Tests was prepared by the National Institutes of Health and is publicly available on the US Access Board's Web site; and
WHEREAS, despite MDH's access to best practice guidance and specific feedback from blindness organizations, none of the current tests distributed through MDH's at-home testing program1 meet the best practices accessibility requirements; now, therefore
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind of Minnesota in Convention assembled this 5th day of November, 2023, in the city of Rochester, Minnesota, that this organization condemn and deplore the Minnesota Department of Health's failure to provide more accessible Covid-19 at home tests; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization call upon MDH to begin immediately to provide COVID tests that can be accessed by blind Minnesotans, for the public health and safety of everyone in our state.
Footnote:
1 MDH's website links to instructional videos for two types of tests, both of which require vision to administer or to read results: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/testsites/athome.html