Coronavirus (COVID-19): shielding support and contacts

Overview of 'shielding' 

Shielding is a measure to protect people who are clinically at high risk of severe illness from coronavirus. We are still advising people in the ‘shielding’ group to take additional steps to minimise their chance of catching coronavirus.

People who have been identified as needing to shield and who live at home are advised to:

• stay at home as much as they can
• avoid going places that are indoors
• only leave their home to be active or meet with people from another household outdoors
• keep 2 metres away from everyone, even those they live with

For now, people living in a residential care or nursing home are advised to remain indoors and not meet up with other people.

Before going outside, we ask that you read our guidance on how to stay safe outdoors. We hope that these changes will have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of those being asked to shield.

It is up to individuals whether or not to follow this advice. However, the Chief Medical Officer strongly urges that they do.

Changes to our shielding advice

We are advising people in this group to keep shielding until at least 31 July 2020. We will continue to support those who have been asked to shield until at least the end of July. This includes weekly grocery boxes, priority access to supermarket delivery slots and prescription deliveries.

We know that shielding is hard. At the moment, it’s still the best way for those in the highest risk group to stay safe from coronavirus.

Like everything, this will be kept under review. We will continually review this advice and monitor infection rates. We will balance this against the harms caused by shielding.

If infection rates increase, our guidance for going outdoors may change. This would only happen if it was felt no longer to be safe for people who have been asked to shield to leave their home. However, if we are confident that infection rates remain well controlled, we will consider further changes to our advice.

Why we are doing this

Our advice is based on evidence and is agreed by our clinical and scientific advisory groups.

On 8 June, we published Shielding: a way forward for Scotland. It explains, in more detail, why we have been able to change our advice on going outdoors. It also gives reasons for asking people in this group to keep shielding until at least 31 July.

Scotland’s route map through and out of the crisis also contains regular updates on the advice for those who have been asked to shield.

We do not plan to ask people to shield forever. However, it will take time to move to a new approach.

How shielding might change in the future

We want to make sure that people have the information they need to fully understand their individual risks. We want to support people who have been asked to shield to make informed choices about the things that are important to them.

We hope this will help people to decide things like whether to go to the shops or ask family and friends to visit. This will help people take back more control over their lives while still staying safe.

Over the summer, we will work towards:

• giving people updated clinical evidence about their conditions and what that means for their risk from coronavirus
• helping people to understand the changing infection rate in their local area
• giving this information in a way that is accessible, understandable and is helpful
• giving access to support to help people make informed choices about their lives
• supporting people to put their choices into practice

Keeping up-to-date with changes to shielding

We will keep giving updates, so that people know what is happening and what to expect.

We will contact those who have been asked to shield about any changes to our advice before the end of July. This will be by letter and through the SMS Shielding Service to send updates to their mobile phones.