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1.7m vulnerable people added to shielding list

The NHS have said letters have now been sent out to those who are now being advised to shield.

1.7m vulnerable people added to shielding list

There will be 1.7million more people being asked to shield in England who will now be prioritised if they have not been vaccinated.

An extra 1.7 million people are expected to be added to the 2.3 million already on the list.

Half of clinically vulnerable people have not yet been vaccinated however they will now be prioritised urgently by their local GPs.

New rules are in place which include more people to be classed as vulnerable against Covid-19.

This new data includes health differences such as: ethnicity, deprivation (by postcode) and weight to work out a person’s risk of becoming seriously ill if they were to catch Covid.

The government website states if your BMI is over 40 you would be classed as vulnerable on the list. This can be worked out on the NHS website.

It also looks at age, underlying health issues and prescribed medications then assesses if you are high risk.

Prof Andrew Hayward, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group said it considered a “combination of factors” such as age, ethnicity and chronic illness and put them together to reach a score.

He told BBC Radio 4 this score could “more or less order people in the population according to their level of risk” and “identify those at the top of that range to say, ‘you should be prioritised for vaccine and you have a level of risk that is similar to those on the shielding list”.

People who have specific conditions or undergoing certain types of treatment have been advised to shield until 31 March until the new developments.

Specific conditions and underlying issues include: adults with Down’s Syndrome, organ donor recipients and people with severe respiratory conditions.

The new model was developed following work by Oxford University which looked at the characteristics of people who died in the first wave to better understand risk.

An example is thousands of those from other cultural backgrounds died more frequently than those who are white British people according to government data.

Medical records have been searched to identify high-risk patients, based on their combined risk factors.

They are now being sent letters by the NHS informing to be informed about the new outlined model.

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