doi: Applied Policy Perspectives Journal of Development Policy Review (JDPR) Vol. 1, Issues 1 & 2, January-March/April-June 2020 ISSN: Applied COVID-19 Pandemic and its Consequences on the Elderly and the Disabled I. C. Awasthi 1 , Soumyadip Chattopadhyay 2 and Arjun Kumar 3 Background The recent and ongoing wave of the coronavirus disease (COVID- 19) has traumatized the globe. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2020a) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (CDC, 2020a), older individuals and those with pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma, heart disease or diabetes, seem to be at a higher risk of becoming severely ill from COVID-19. Some studies (CDC, 2020b) have estimated (Maier et al., 2020) that those who contract COVID-19 and who are 65 years and older have a 4% mortality rate, 75 years and older have an 8% mortality rate, and 85 years and older have a 15% mortality rate; the average mortality rate being around 2%. In his speech (Livemint, 2020) on 14 th April 2020 that announced a second phase of nationwide lockdown– Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi urged the citizens to provide “extra care” to the elderly, especially those with chronic diseases, in tandem with “social distancing” and self-isolation. Globally, the elderly population constitute 12.3% of the total population, and their numbers are steadily rising because of falling mortality and fertility rates. The number of persons in the age group 60 years above is projected to grow by 56% from 901 million to 1.4 billion during 2015 and 2030 (United Nations, Department of Economic 1 Honorary Secretary, Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) and the Indian Association of Social Science Institutions (IASSI); Professor, Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi. 2 Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Visva-Bharati University, Santi Niketan; Senior Fellow, Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi. 3 Director, IMPRI; China-India Visiting Scholars (CIVS) Fellow, Ashoka University. E-mail: arjun@impriindia.org