[ad_1]
Ministers face calls to end the limbo of “undefined” isolation for the 2.5 million people who protect themselves from the coronavirus, amid claims that the numbers added to the “extremely vulnerable” list have doubled in some areas in the last week.
Labor said it was “deeply alarming” that hundreds of thousands more people have been added to the list of people to be isolated indoors in the past seven weeks, suggesting they were at unnecessary risk by being ignored initially.
The opposition also asked for clarity on how long they would have to put their lives on hold, as government sources said a review of the “extremely clinically vulnerable” state would likely conclude that many in that group would have to continue to isolate themselves over the summer months.
Initially, a group of 1.5 million “clinically extremely vulnerable” people in England were advised to protect themselves by not leaving their homes for 12 weeks, from March 23 to June 15.
This lasted until “late June,” but the government’s coronavirus recovery plan released Monday revealed that it was now “likely that the government will continue to advise people who are clinically extremely vulnerable to the shield beyond June.” The government said this amounted to 2.5 million people across the UK, of whom 2.1 million are in England.
Steve Reed, the secretary of shadow communities and local government, said there had to be an explanation for why so many people were initially off the list.
“The government’s inability to work collaboratively to provide PPE and deployment testing has already put people at risk and now it appears that they left vulnerable people in danger due to their disjointed approach to armoring,” he said.
“People who are currently protecting themselves have been led to believe that they could be asked to isolate themselves for an indefinite period; they deserve clarity from the government on how long they will have to put their lives on hold. “
Labor said it was concerned that vulnerable people were still left off the list, leading to increases in number protection despite the UK being locked up for seven weeks.
Angela Smith, the Labor leader in the House of Lords, said: “What is the government doing to improve its efforts to identify and notify those in high-risk categories? Local authorities are reporting big mistakes. Initially they expressed concern that the numbers seemed too low, but were not asked to contribute their knowledge as data identification was being carried out centrally.
“It now appears that thousands of people were initially missed, and in some areas local authorities have been told that the number of citizens to be protected has more than doubled in the past week.”
Doctors claim that the process of preparing and updating the “protection” list has been complicated.
A GP said: “It was a stupid idea for the government to give the public the impression that it would be a simple thing to do, that all the doctors had to do was press a button on their computer to find those patients they needed be cared for. ” on the “shield” list.
People who did not need to be listed, for example, because they only had a mild form of asthma or hypertension, or recovered many years before a disease such as cancer, were initially included.
Conversely, others were excluded, because data extraction and analysis from various NHS record systems, some maintained by GPs, others by hospital physicians, did not correctly identify their additional risk for Covid, and therefore , the need to stay inside.
The list has also increased to 2.5 million because patients who are not on the original list approached their GP to request it, often because they were afraid of hiring Covid as a result of their work.
The government review on the protection of individuals is being led by the Department of Health and Social Work and we will present a report at the end of next month.
A department spokesman said: “These claims [of a large jump in numbers] they are completely misleading: people are added to and removed from the protection list regularly at the clinical discretion of their GP, as they are better able to advise on the needs of their individual patients during this time.
“As the day goes by, we learn more about this virus and its impact on people, and we will continue to do everything we can to protect people.”
Those currently in the protection group include people with specific cancers, solid organ transplant recipients, people with severe respiratory conditions, people with certain conditions that suppress the immune system, and pregnant women with significant heart disease.
The review is likely to produce more detailed advice on which categories of people are most at risk, advising some who may take more risks and others who should be more cautious.
Government medical advisers are also considering the impact of other risk factors, such as how the virus disproportionately affects older people, men, overweight people, and people with other underlying conditions. It is conducting a separate review of the impact of coronavirus on the death rate of people of minority ethnicity.
