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President Joe Biden announced Monday that serious long-term Covid-19 cases could qualify as a disability, making federal protections and resources available to those suffering from the disease. Speaking at an event at the White House celebrating the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, he said that lingering Covid symptoms, such as fatigue or brain fog, "can sometimes rise to the level of a disability." (Egan, 7/26)

“We are bringing agencies together to make sure Americans with long Covid, who have a disability, have access to the rights and resources that are due under disability law,” Biden said during his remarks. Under guidance issued by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, long Covid can qualify as a disability under federal civil rights laws if it “substantially limits one or more major life activities.”  (Constantino, 7/26)

The new effort will be aimed at making sure people with those long-term COVID-19 symptoms "have access to the rights and resources that are due under the disability law," Biden said. That could include mandating new accommodations for those disabilities at restaurants, in workplaces, at school and in the healthcare system. The White House did not immediately provide additional details on the program. (Hunnicutt, 7/26)

The announcement comes as President Joe Biden marked the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in remarks in the Rose Garden at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris. ... Biden on Monday touted the ADA as an essential piece of legislation for the more than 60 million Americans living with a disability. "Many of us can still recall in America where a person with disabilities was denied service in restaurants and grocery stores -- and could be. Where a person using a wheelchair couldn't ride on a train or take a bus to work or to school, or an employer could refuse to hire you because of a disability. An America that wasn't built for all Americans," Biden said. (Sullivan, 7/26)

The White House’s Monday celebration of the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act did not escape some signs of modern partisanship. But when President Joe Biden called his former Senate colleague, Appropriations Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, onstage for the signing of a proclamation honoring the 31st anniversary of the ADA, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy began taking pictures with the Vermont Democrat’s omnipresent camera. It was a bipartisan moment at a Rose Garden ceremony that looked back on the groundbreaking law’s bipartisan history. (Lesniewski, 7/26)