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I’m Visually Impaired. I Don’t Want Things to Go Back to Normal.
This pandemic is forcing society to make changes that should’ve been implemented a long time ago
This year has been full of surprises and changes for everyone because of the pandemic. Yet, as a visually impaired person, not all of these changes have been bad for me.
Before the pandemic, going to a restaurant and reading a menu independently seemed difficult, if not impossible. I am totally blind, and unless the menu is in Braille (which it usually is not) or in digital form, I have to rely on a sighted person to read the words and let me make my choice. In a short time span, I’ve seen this and other things, many of them less trivial, change. But I fear that these changes will disappear.
The case of restaurants, for example, may seem trivial on the surface. However, it’s significant because it is such a simple change to implement, and yet it took the world falling apart to do it.
In order to encourage social distancing, restaurant menus are being delivered digitally, through QR codes that, after being scanned, let our electronic devices access them. In addition to avoiding physical contact and thus helping to reduce the spread of the virus, this simple modification also allows me, as a blind…
