During the pandemic, dependent elderly people and those with disabilities were among the most affected by Covid-19: the mortality rate in these people, especially those living in residential care facilities, was much higher than in the rest of the population. According to the authors, this occurrence is due not only to contingent reasons, but also to structural ones, which reveal the cultural attitude towards disability and dependency which is widespread in the Italian society, where elderly and disabled people are assigned a minority social status. In the essay, the authors analyze some relevant consequences of the tendency to consider these people as part of a lesser humanity, focusing on what happened during the pandemic.