Evaluating COVID-19 Website Accessibility Using Cloud and Data Approaches

Government COVID-19 websites became the primary channel for public health communication, yet their accessibility for disabled users remained largely unexamined. This study evaluates 62 official COVID-19 websites across 34 countries using the Crisis Web Accessibility Score (CWAS), a composite metric based on WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria. Results show that 74.2% of sites contain critical accessibility failures, with an average CWAS of 43.1/100. While visual barriers were most frequent, cognitive accessibility issues had the highest public-safety impact. Websites with prior accessibility programs performed significantly better. Based on these findings, we propose the Crisis Accessible Web Protocol (CAWP), a 72-hour deployable framework for accessible emergency web communication, along with policy recommendations to improve accessibility in future crises.