ASL interpreter Carrie Humphrey accompanies Gov. Ralph Northam during a COVID-19 briefing. (Image courtesy Office of the Governor)
Sheena Cobb, an advocate for the deaf community who lives in Richmond, says she would “feel really scared” if she visited an emergency room to receive COVID-19 treatment without the assistance of family or a live American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter.
Cobb would have to rely on a video remote interpreter (VRI) to translate virtually, which isn’t ideal.
“I’ve had bad experiences using VRI,” she says through an interpreter. “Sometimes the video quality is not good. I can’t see the interpreter clearly. And now, with the COVID pandemic, I certainly have concerns about that, if it would be effective.”
For the deaf community, barriers to accessing ASL interpretation are a public health issue. And governments and health care facilities are reaching deaf people with varying success, while dealing with the new communications hurdle of social distancing and face mask requirements, which make lip reading impossible.
The problem is drawing national attention as the Trump administration ignores requests by national deaf advocacy organizations to provide ASL interpreters at COVID-19 press briefings. Independent of the federal government, private partnerships of digital interpretation and media services for the deaf interpret presidential COVID-19 briefings.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been sued for failing to provide ASL interpretation at his daily briefings. A senior adviser says Cuomo’s office has “deployed a dedicated [ASL] stream” on the governor’s website and that “all conferences have been closed captioned.” But the suit’s plaintiffs assert that not all New York residents have internet access.
Closed captioning is required for government-broadcasted media and social media posts, “but doesn’t equate total access,” when used without ASL, says Carrie Humphrey, an interpreter for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s conferences. Captions often are not shown at a steady pace and disappear quickly if the presenter is speaking rapidly. Much of the deaf community uses ASL, which is visually more accessible than captioning, Humphrey adds. Despite limitations, captions are necessary because many people who are hard of hearing do not know sign language, she says.
The Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (VDDHH), which facilitates access to communications for the state’s deaf and deaf-blind communities, provides interpreters for Gov. Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 briefings.
In a variety of settings, ASL interpretation is provided either by an interpreter who can hear or by a team consisting of a hearing interpreter and an interpreter who is deaf — a certified deaf interpreter (CDI). At press conferences, a CDI works with an off-camera hearing interpreter, who listens to speakers and signs to the on-camera CDI, who then interprets directly to ASL audiences.
Currently, the VDDHH provides hearing interpreters for state coronavirus briefings. For a short time, the VDDHH used a CDI and hearing interpreter team, says VDDHH Director Eric Raff, who is deaf and spoke through an interpreter.
CDIs, as native users of ASL, often communicate more clearly to the deaf community because the visual language is not a word-for-word translation of English.
“What happens is there’s a bridge between English and American Sign Language,” Raff says. “A deaf interpreter can relate better to the broad audience and provide access to a variety of communities. Unfortunately, hearing and deaf interpreter teams are not widely practiced, and we are recognizing that need.”
Two CDIs live in Virginia several hours from Richmond, which makes providing the service at the governor’s briefings difficult, Raff says.
The VDDHH maintains a list of interpreters who serve state agencies, whose services are available at cost to private entities. The Americans With Disabilities Act mandates agencies assume the responsibility of providing live or digital ASL interpretation. Word is spreading to local governments about the importance of providing interpreters at coronavirus briefings, Raff says, as the Virginia Department of Emergency Management promotes the practice as part of its response to the pandemic. In early May, the office of Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney began including an ASL interpreter at his weekly updates on COVID-19.
Nationally, more local governments are using interpreters, and more of these interpreters are credentialed, which hasn’t always been the case in “local states of emergency,” Humphrey says.
But while governments improve their practices, access to the information they share remains impeded when news organizations do not fully show interpreters in their live feeds, Cobb says.
“[Videographers] should … make sure the interpreter knows where to stand, and make sure that the camera is on the interpreter at all times during that press briefing,” Cobb says. “If they switch to a PowerPoint screen or something like that while the presenter is talking, ... the deaf community is going to miss that information that’s being spoken.”
Sheena Cobb, an advocate for the deaf community, speaks through an interpreter about the difficulties of accessing vital communications before and during the coronavirus pandemic. (Viewers can click and drag any captions that obscure the speaker in the video. A full transcript of the interview is available on request.)
For its pandemic response efforts, VDDHH has curated online public health resources accessible to the deaf and deaf-blind communities. The Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired is sharing virus-related information through similar means for the blind and deaf-blind and has created communication cards with assistive messages to help patients who are deaf-blind to interact with medical professionals.
But VDDHH “can do more right now” to remind private hospital staff of deaf-accessibility best practices, Raff says. Hospitals are required to practice mandated deaf-accessibility guidelines and post them on their websites. But current guidelines are not always effective, Raff says. In addition to a lack of clarity from video remote interpreting services, with surgical masks hampering lip reading, the VDDHH encourages the use of communication cards or smartphone apps to communicate with health care providers.
Raff says that because VRI services are “not always reliable,” he “can’t help but wonder if interpreters should be recognized as essential employees,” but he acknowledges the risk.
Independent of governments and hospitals, members of the deaf community are communicating coronavirus-related information among themselves. Cobb is encouraged by video blog stories of deaf people recovering from COVID-19 and navigating health care systems.
“I’ve seen on Facebook there have been people vlogging and explaining what COVID-19 is,” she says. “Deaf individuals are taking that initiative to explain things.”
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