NEW ADVICE FOR 130,000 ‘SHIELDERS’
SHIELDING advice for around 130,000 vulnerable people in Wales will be paused from August 16, the country’s chief medical officer has confirmed.
Dr Frank Atherton said those who have been advised to take shielding measures during the coronavirus pandemic will be able to go to work, school, and go shopping.
His comments came yesterday as, in separate developments in Wales’ coronavirus battle:
■ A leading NHS official said it could take up to four years to clear the waiting list backlog in Wales caused by the impact of the pandemic;
■ Latest figures showed no new deaths with Covid-19 had been recorded for the fourth time in seven days; and
■ Wales was put on alert that a second peak of coronavirus this winter could be “similar, if not worse” than the first peak seen in March and April.
With regards to the new shielding advice, the changes apply to people who have been advised to stay at their homes because of their increased susceptibility to Covid-19 due to preexisting health conditions.
Those in the shielding group, made up of around 130,000 people, have been allowed to form an “extended household” with one other household since June 29.
Yesterday, Dr Atherton said relaxing the restriction was possible due to the continued fall in the prevalence of the virus in Wales, and was partly due to the measure’s “negative impact on people’s physical and mental health”.
He said: “As the level of the virus in our communities is now low, shielding should pause from August 16. This means those who have been shielding can gradually resume day-to-day life, but taking extra care around physical distancing and hand washing.”
He told the Welsh Government’s daily press briefing in Cardiff the restrictions had “not been easy for people”, adding there was a need to “get people reintegrated into normal society as much as we can while viral transmission is very low”.
Dr Atherton said it would allow people to “go out to the shops”, “return to school, university, college”, and “return to work”, though employees needed to check their work environments were “Covid-secure”.
The changes will also end the supply of food boxes to people who cannot go shopping and are without family support, but supermarket priority slots and a prescription delivery service will continue up until the end of September.
But Dr Atherton warned the restriction was only being paused, not ended, saying people on the list could be asked to shield once again near the winter if the prevalence of the virus increased.
A review of which people need to be shielded will take place on a UK level, he said, meaning a reinstated group would be in a “slightly different form”.
Public Health Wales (PHW) said there were no new deaths of people who tested positive for coronavirus for the fourth time in seven days, with the number remaining at 1,545.
It is the fifth time this month there have been no new deaths reported in a 24-hour period, following the same announcement on July 6, 10, 12 and 13. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the true death toll in Wales, where the virus was mentioned on a death certificate, was 2,470 by July 11.
The total number of cases in Wales increased by 18, bringing the revised total of confirmed cases to 16,871.
Wrexham had five new cases followed by Conwy with four. Monmouthshire, Anglesey, Cardiff, Vale of Glamorgan, Merthyr Tydfil, Carmarthenshire, Powys and Neath Port Talbot all had one new case. All other local authorities had no new cases.
And even though testing capacity stands at 15,000 each day in Wales just 4,319 tests were carried out on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a leading NHS official warned the health service’s recovery in Wales will take years.
Dr Andrew Goodall, chief executive of NHS Wales, said by the end of May around 60,000 patients were waiting more than 36 weeks for their treatment to begin after being referred.
But the overall waiting lists had not increased because there had been a large drop in referrals from GPs, he said.
Dr Goodall yesterday told the Senedd’s health, social care and sport committee that attendances at A&E departments across Wales had fallen by 60% in March and April, although in recent weeks they had started to recover.
He said there had been a “noticeable drop” in referrals for suspected cancer cases, which had been as high as 70%.
“Waiting lists are a concern and we have seen an impact on the length of time patients are already on our waiting lists,” Dr Goodall told the committee.
“We have seen a reduction in outpatient referrals coming in from GPs and they are 50% down on what we would normally expect.
“The waiting list in size terms has, to my surprise, reduced in total numbers. That is because we have maintained a level of activity while referrals have dropped off.”
Ahead of the lockdown, Dr Goodall said forecasts suggested 28,000 people would die in Wales after contracting Covid-19 and there would be 120,000 hospital admissions.
As a result, the NHS in Wales halted routine hospital appointments and procedures to focus on treating coronavirus patients.
With the lockdown easing, Dr Goodall said there was the beginning of a recovery in the numbers of referrals being made but it would take “some considerable time” for the NHS to return to where it was before the pandemic.
“I personally would be saying that this could well take us another sort of three to four years to recover and I would hope that we would do it sooner than that with some of the understanding that we have, but it could well be quite a long haul,” he said.
“I’m afraid the deterioration would have put us back in the fray two or three years as a minimum.”
Dr Goodall’s comments come just days after doctors at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales told the Echo waiting lists for routine hip and knee operations could take years to return to pre-Covid levels.
The NHS Wales chief executive also opened up on fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections this winter,
which could combine with the annual flu season and the usual winter pressures on the NHS.
He said the country is currently planning for the “worst-case scenario” in infection rates.
He told the committee a winter peak could be “much more sustained” and at a higher rate.
He said it was likely that local outbreaks, and local lockdowns, would be required as the virus is known to spread more easily in darker, damper conditions and indoors where people are more likely to congregate as the nights draw in.
A new report by the Academy of Medical Science, which was commissioned by the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, has called for immediate efforts to prepare for a second wave. Compiled by 37 experts, it warns that a resurgence of cases could “overwhelm” the NHS across the UK and claim as many as 120,000 lives of patients in hospital.
The reasonable worst-case scenario assumes that the ‘R’ value could roughly double to 1.7 across the UK in September. In Wales it is thought to be at around 0.8 at present. However, the modelling excludes deaths in care homes and the community, assumes no government intervention to prevent transmission, and does not factor in the use of dexamethasone, a drug recently shown to save lives in intensive care units.
“Despite looking to reset normal activity quarter by quarter and into the winter, we absolutely need to assume that there will be a second peak, and that we should expect it to be similar, if not worse, than our experiences in March and April,” said Dr Goodall.
“We have done our own assessment of what we think we’ll need just in terms of providing capacity across the system in Wales. Whilst we may not need as many beds through things like field hospital provision, as we were originally intending, we will still need to have that extra level of contingency in the system to respond.
“The peak is likely to be much more sustained through the winter period, at a higher level. In the winter the virus will act in a more difficult manner.”
As the level of the virus in our communities is now low, shielding should pause from August 16
Dr Frank Atherton