How much did the Covid-19 shielding policy cost in Wales? A Retrospective Cost analysis within the EVITE Immunity study, 2023, Sewell et al

Link and abstract of the study is posted later in the thread, here.

BBC: Covid: No evidence shielding helped - Swansea uni study
quote:

Swansea University compared 117,000 people shielding in Wales with the rest of the population of three million.

The study found deaths and healthcare usage were higher among shielding people than the general population.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-65358308

 

Shouldn't this rather have said that we are not doing a good enough job in protecting clinically vulnerable people?

 

well obviously since those shielding were the most at risk - deaths & healthcare useage in that population would already be higher than the general polulation, regardless of any pandemic or different behaviour. You could have put them in a sealed bubble & more of them would still have died.

How stupid are these people?

 

I also wouldn't be surprised if some of this is simply down to not being able to shield properly. How to deal with doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, help in the home, family members going to work/school/parties etc? Is it even possible to shield when the rest of the society has stopped caring?

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1649760245349076995

 

Quote about the higher rates of COVID infection in the shielding group (taken from the article):

"We have to remember that people who were included in the shielded list were clinically vulnerable and having a lot of contact with health services so if they were for instance admitted to hospital, they'd be having a Covid test.

"Whereas in the general population, Covid tests were fewer - we can't find a positive test if there was no test done. There is some uncertainty around these results."
​

It's possible that folks in the non-shielding group got infected but had minor symptoms, or none at all, so they never got tested.

 

Oh, did playing "the floor is lava but sometimes it's OK to walk on it" not work out? How odd.

The next decade or so will be an era of extreme nihilism and basically defying experts. And unless there is a marked separation between actual experts and politicized expertise, I'm sorry but in other professions we just don't screw up like that, it's going to affect all expertise.

For sure the next pandemic will be so much worse, as millions of deaths and newly disabled have been accepted without any debate or protest at all, as if it didn't even happen, while it's happening. It's hard to see how even 100M deaths could change much, or even a billion disabled. There is no limit to the need to cover up any responsibility, failure is fully accepted. When that much failure has been accepted, it's only ever going to get worse until there is massive reform.

 

Merged thread

How much did the Covid-19 shielding policy cost in Wales? A Retrospective Cost analysis within the EVITE Immunity study

Bernadette Sewell, Angela Farr, Ashley Akbari, Andrew Carson-Stevens, Adrian Edwards, Bridie Angela Evans, Ann John, Fatemeh Torabi, Jeremy Dale, Stephen Jolles, Mark Rhys Kingston, Jane Lyons, Ronan A Lyons, Alison Porter, Alan Watkins, Victoria Williams, Helen Snooks

Abstract

Background: The EVITE Immunity study investigates the effects of shielding Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) people during the COVID-19 pandemic on health outcomes and healthcare costs in Wales, UK, to help prepare for future pandemics. Shielding was intended to protect those at highest risk of serious harm from COVID-19. We report the cost of implementing shielding in Wales.

Methods: The number of people shielding was extracted from the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Databank. Resources supporting shielding between March and June 2020 were mapped using published reports, web pages, freedom of information requests to Welsh Government and personal communications (e.g. the office of the Chief Medical Officer for Wales).

Results: At the beginning of shielding, 117,415 people were on the shielding list. The total additional cost to support those advised to stay home during the initial 14 weeks of the pandemic was £13,307,654 (£113 per person shielded). This included the new resources required to compile the shielding list, inform CEV people of the shielding intervention and provide medicine and food deliveries. The list was adjusted weekly over the 3-month period (130,000 people identified by June 2020) therefore the cost per person shielded lies between £102 and £113.

Conclusion: This is the first evaluation of the cost of the measures put in place to support those identified to shield in Wales. However, no data on opportunity cost was available. The true cost of shielding including its budget impact and opportunity costs need to be investigated to decide whether shielding is a worthwhile policy for future health emergencies.

Preprint: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-2573712/v1

 

exactly. There is no appropriate comparison between people who were being tested often and those who werent being tested at all...

oh... what a surprise we saw more positive test results in people we did a lot more tests on.

Duh. This is Homer Simpson level 'science'. I just despair.

At the same time it makes me realise its not just us, its not just ME/CFS, its all just populated with a majority of totally illogical thinking.