In 17 months, Covid-19 has killed over 630 thousand Americans and over 20 thousand Michiganders. Now, with the school year upon us and the Delta variant surging, we are extremely concerned about the health and safety of all who make up our schools, and specifically our teachers, staff and students, with disabilities, chronic illness and underlying health conditions. According to the World Health Organization, people with disabilities are at a greater risk of contracting Covid-19 due to physical barriers to accessing hygiene, difficulty enacting social distancing, the need to touch things for information or for physical support, barriers to accessing public health information and care, and aggravation of underlying health conditions. Moreover, we’ve learned that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are three times more likely to die from Covid-19, that people with Down syndrome are 10 times more likely to die, and that people with autism have a greater likelihood of dying from the virus than the general population. Therefore, we write to urge you to mandate the use of masks, mandate social distancing, and require all teachers and staff to be vaccinated or regularly tested for Covid-19 in all of our schools.