Brits could be given coronavirus 'risk scores' during easing of lockdown, scientist suggests

Kit Heren30 May 2020

Brits could be given coronavirus risk scores to help ease the lockdown safely, a scientist has suggested.

Cambridge professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, who has been a prominent commentator on the UK's response to the coronavirus outbreak, said the move could help the UK manage the spread of the virus more efficiently.

Sir David, who chairs the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, added that the UK's broad levels of vulnerability could be divided into “more finely grained strata covering the whole range of risk."

Factors could include age, gender, ethnicity and underlying health conditions, he said.

People enjoy the sunny and warm weather on the banks of the River Thames in London
AP

Sir David told the BBC's Today programme: “And that means I think we’re going to need some sort of individualised Covid risk score that can be used in that way, to group people according to their risk, and then that would be advisory, and if people wanted to move, and they protected other people, then that would be open to them.

“To have something that’s more standardised and that was common across the population, I think, would be a big advance.”

Sir David added that the UK is one of the best country's at calculating health risks.

He said: “The UK is leading the world in developing these risk scores because we’ve got these big electronic general practice databases.

People queue outside a cafe in London
AFP via Getty Images

“Ben Goldacre’s team in Oxford looked at 17 million records, produced a risk score, it’s already being studied in the US, a paper came out yesterday showing how you could stratify groups in different US cities, how many people would be in different groups, so these scores are being developed and could be turned into a tool that could be used for people.”

The news comes after almost 50 charities wrote to the Government expressing concern about the wellbeing of vulnerable people still asked to shield themselves from the virus indoors, while the lockdown begins to ease for the majority of Brits.

The charities called on the Government to publish clear and consistent guidelines for people in these vulnerable groups.

Boris Johnson has said he was unable to provide a timeline on when shielding measures for vulnerable groups could be lifted, while Environment Secretary George Eustice has warned they could last for months ahead.

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