The four million people in England and Wales who have been advised to shield were told they no longer needed to in April. In England, most clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) people are aware of this change in guidance and most have been fully vaccinated against Covid. But half have decided to continue shielding anyway. The Evening Standard has the story.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that 50% of CEV people said they were continuing to shield when asked between April 26th and May 1st.
But an ONS analysis, published on Friday, found that 84% reported being aware that Government advice to shield had been paused and that two-thirds (67%) had received two doses of coronavirus vaccine.
Tim Gibbs, Head of the Public Services Analysis team at the ONS, said: “Since April 1st, 2021, CEV people have been advised that they no longer need to shield to protect themselves from Covid.
“Our results today show that although Government advice to shield has paused, half of those identified as CEV reported continuing to shield.
“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.”
The ONS added that approximately 420,000 of CEV people (11%) were estimated to have not left the house in the last seven days.
There are a total of 3.7 million people in England identified as being clinically extremely vulnerable to severe impact from COVID-19, the ONS said.
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