Autism and the pandemic
Are the chances of autistic people getting Covid-19 higher or lower than non-autistic people?
There seem to be two points of view.
Google autism and Covid-19 and you get 147 million links. I haven’t counted them, but I would guess that 95% of them relate to the impact on the autistic person of lockdown and other consequences of the pandemic and not about the direct physical health risks of the virus on autistic people.
One report I did find from November 2020, referred to greater risks of autistic people suffering serious health consequences due to the higher incidence of co-morbidity (e.g., epilepsy, digestive problems and inflammatory system problems).
However, I also read a report from 2016 suggested that for all recorded categories of disease, autistic people are at a greater risk of mortality compared to the general population, except for death from infection.
Why would risk of infection be less? It seems a bit simplistic and easy to say that this could that be explained by autistic people less likely to mix in large groups, and therefore less likely to pick up infections? Or is it they are more likely to comply guidelines?
So… does this suggest that autistic people are less likely to get the virus but when they do more likely to suffer serious health consequences?If this is the case does this impact in any way on how we give advice/support/care for an autistic person?
Really interested to know what you think.