Almost 2 million people still shielding in England, figures reveal
Almost 2 million clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) people in England have continued to shield despite the government advising they no longer need to, new figures have revealed.
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that 50 percent, or 1.85 million, of those at risk of ‘severe impact’ from Coronavirus continued shielding between 26 April and 1 May 2021.
Government advice to shield was paused from 1 April 2021, however shielding was never compulsory.
Shielding was initially introduced on 29 March 2020, paused in August and then reintroduced in January 2021.
Marc Cotterill, 39, from Stoke-on-Trent, has Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and was one of the 2.2 million people on the Shielded Patient List.
He ‘isn’t surprised at all’ to hear that half of CEV people are still shielding.
Marc said: “If you’re in that group, you have some level of experience of serious illness and what that means to you.
“So trivial things like going for a drink at the pub are so far down the priority list for me. The risk is just not worth the potential negatives of doing those things too soon.”
But Marc noted that a lot of people in the CF community disagree, as they’ve already given away so much time to the condition.
He continued: “There’s no right or wrong answer and a lot of people don’t know what to do yet. But as CF is a lifelong illness, I don’t want to give it an opportunity to become worse.”
Marc, who has been shielding alone since March 2020, has recently started going food shopping in person rather than online.
He has met up with friends and family, but is still taking precautions.
Towards the end of 2019, Marc’s lung capacity was at 29 percent. He became the first person in the UK to take new CF drug Trikafta, which has helped to increase his lung capacity.
He described the drug as ‘transformational,’ adding: “Taking Trikafta is a feeling that no pandemic can outweigh.”
Tim Gibbs, head of the Public Services Analysis Team at the ONS, said: “We’ve recently seen lockdown restrictions ease significantly.
“This is great to see, however it’s critical that we continue to monitor the impact of these changes on groups such as the clinically extremely vulnerable.”
