People with disabilities left behind by tech advances in US

People with disabilities have been left behind by pandemic medical innovations such as telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, CNN has reported.

"Telemedicine, teleworking, rapid tests, virtual school, and vaccine drive-throughs have become part of Americans' routines as they enter Year 3 of life amid COVID-19," said the American news channel on Thursday. "But as innovators have raced to make living in a pandemic world safer, some people with disabilities have been left behind."

Citing a 35-year-old deaf-blind woman in Orlando, Florida, Divya Goel, who said she has been denied an interpreter twice when she tried to make telemedicine doctors' appointments during the pandemic.

"It's really, really hard to get real information, and so I feel very stuck in my situation," she signed through an interpreter.

One in four adults in the US have some sort of disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pandemic has made it harder for them and brought long-running inequities, though their difficulties in life have existed for a long time, CNN said.