Suddenly shielding and vaccination variation, with Kevin Fenton and Kamlesh Khunti

BMJ talk medicine

Suddenly 1.7m extra people have been told to shield from coronavirus, thanks to the QCovid algorithm, and that's causing confusion - ethnicity is one of the risk factors in QCovid, and yet there is a signal that there is lower update of the vaccine amongst ethnic minorities in the UK. In this week’s episode, we discuss how particular factors, such as age, ethnicity, and comorbidities, affect your QCovid score, and why a GP can help people interpret that population level risk to themselves. We also discuss how institutional barriers may be preventing people from accessing the vaccine, and the active role that GPs should play in engaging with their at-risk patients, and how they might best support the communities they serve in promoting vaccine uptake. Our guests: Kevin Fenton is the Regional Director of Public Health England for London, and Regional Director of Public Health NHS London. Kamlesh Khunti is a professor of Primary Care Diabetes & Vascular Medicine at the University of Leicester. He is also the co-director of the Leicester Diabetes Centre, and co-developer of the QCovid algorithm.