No Evidence Shielding Helped Vulnerable People During COVID, Study Shows

A doctor wearing protective equipment is seen unloading a patient outside St. Thomas's Hospital in London, on April 7, 2020. Peter Summers/Getty Images

There is no evidence that shielding benefited vulnerable people as a COVID-19 pandemic response, according to a new study.

A new study of health data has examined the policy of shielding those deemed “clinically extremely vulnerable” (CEV) to the virus, with the study’s main author claiming the UK government policy “was sort of made up at the time and implemented.” Shielding involves minimising the interaction between CEV persons and others.

Top oncologist Angus Dalgleish, who has called for the COVID-19 vaccine programme to be halted, told The Epoch Times that he was not surprised by the results of the study, and that governments “caused more harm than good.”

Great Barrington Declaration author and Stanford Medical School epidemiologist Jay Bhattacharya echoed the same sentiment to The Epoch Times.

A research team from Swansea University examined data from the year after the policy was introduced in March 2020, and concluded that a “lack of clear impact on infection rates raises questions about the success of shielding.”

The team compared the 117,000 people shielding in Wales with the rest of the population, some 3 million in total, who were not.

Shielding

Shielding was introduced at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, with health authorities claiming that it was one of the few interventions available to support those who were considered to be most at risk of serious illness from the virus.

The government guidance on shielding for Wales and England ended in 2021.

The study also found that the COVID-19 rate was higher among those shielding at 5.9 percent, compared to 5.7 percent for those not who did not implement the measure.

It said that shielded people and their families made great efforts to isolate and protect themselves from COVID-19 infection and subsequent harms, including death.

However, such isolation and restrictions on going out “may have affected the mental and physical health of people included in this public health policy intervention, without evidence so far of substantive protective effects.”

The researchers concluded that a lack of clear impact on infection rates “raises questions about the success of shielding and indicates that further research is required to fully evaluate this national policy intervention.

“Shielding was an untested public health policy that was introduced in the United Kingdom early in the pandemic, in contrast to other countries where there was more focus on closing borders, lockdown, test and trace systems,” the authors added.

“The shielding policy was based on assumptions rather than evidence of effectiveness,” they said.

A man is seen wearing a face mask during the CCP virus pandemic in Sheffield, England, on Oct. 22, 2020. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Professor Helen Snooks of Swansea University Medical School, who led the research, said: “Our study found no evidence of reduced COVID-19 infections one year after shielding was introduced. This raises questions about the benefits of shielding for vulnerable people as a policy.”

Talking to the BBC about the research, Snooks said that for a “particular person, it may have been the best thing to do.

“What we evaluated was the policy of writing to people and recommending very strongly that they stay at home. It wasn’t underpinned at that time by any evidence.

“It was sort of made up at the time and implemented.”

‘Locked Themselves Away’

Angus Dalgleish, professor of oncology at St. Georges Hospital Medical School London, is renowned for his groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS. Dalgleish told The Epoch Times by email that the study’s findings were not surprising.

“Everything the government did had no scientific basis, including lockdowns, shielding, masks and, I would add to that, the vaccine programme, which has clearly caused more harm than good,” he said.

“They should have done what I and others advised: top-up vitamin D3 levels and treat early symptoms as you would any other airborne infection—aspirin, mouthwash, intranasal interferon, and becotide,” he said.

“Now we hear that mask-wearing has caused increased pneumonia, long COVID symptoms, and cognitive decline,” said Dalgleish.

Professor Jay Bhattacharya, who authored the Great Barrington Declaration, told The Epoch Times by email that the study demonstrates that the steps that Wales took to “shield” vulnerable people did not protect them from contracting COVID-19.

“The policy, as described in the study paper, involved sending high risk individuals a letter advising them to stay at home and self-isolate. It is not surprising that such a policy, which apparently provided no other guidance or support for these populations, failed to protect them,” he said.

Bhattacharya said that the Great Barrington Declaration, which was coauthored by epidemiologists Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldorff, provided “concrete suggestions for better protecting vulnerable individuals during times of high community spread, including sabbatical time for vulnerable workers, better protection of care homes, free delivery of foods, etc.”

“It should be noted also that the lockdowns in 2020 and into 2021 that Wales implemented also tragically failed to protect vulnerable people,” he added.

Dr. Tony Hinton, an NHS consultant in ear, nose, and throat surgery who has openly questioned COVID-19 narratives in the British medical community, also told The Epoch Times by email that he was “not surprised” by the study.

Hinton has been vocal about the harms of lockdowns on children, and has repeatedly stated that children must not be given the COVID-19 jab.

“Some people basically locked themselves away for two years, and there was no science to support the policy. A much better approach would have been to give all elderly and vulnerable people vitamin D supplements of 4,000 units a day,” he wrote.

“This could have been sent out free of charge and would have cost a few million pounds,” Hinton stated, noting that the total budget for the entire NHS Test and Trace program in its first two years was £37 billion.

“£37 billion was wasted on test and trace for no benefit,” he said.

The Welsh government did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

A Welsh government spokesperson told the BBC: “The introduction of shielding was one of a number of public health interventions made to keep Wales safe that followed medical and scientific advice.

“We will continue to review evidence as we learn from the protective interventions and mitigations applied during the COVID-19 response.”

The Epoch Times also contacted the British government regarding Dalgleish’s comments.