Guidance on shielding and protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19 – update
A new risk assessment model has been developed following the characteristics of people who died in the first wave to better understand risk. Using this model, a further 1.7 million of the population are now classified as high risk based on combined risk factors.
Source:
Public Health England
SPS commentary:
This calculation includes things 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.
These people are now being sent letters by the NHS informing of them of their new status, and recommendation to shield, which means they are entitled to statutory sick pay, prioritisation for online shopping slots and help collecting medicines. They will also now be prioritised for the COVID vaccine if they have not already received it.