I’m diabetic but was only put in the ‘shielding group’ last week – why has the government been so slow to act?

In August last year, the results of a nationwide analysis of the impact of Covid on people with diabetes was published. It has taken Matt Hancock and his team months to catch up

The baseline risk of dying for those with Type 1 diabetes is three-and-half times greater than for the average Briton (Getty Images)

I started the slow handclap the moment I opened the letter from Matt Hancock’s department of health and social care.

“New research commissioned by the chief medical officer has recently enabled us to identify people who may be at increased risk of becoming seriously unwell from coronavirus,” it said. And you’re one of ‘em.

On the eve of Boris Johnson publishing his “roadmap” out of the pandemic, I was told I’m “clinically extremely vulnerable” and had been placed into what’s commonly known as “the shielding group”. Clap. Clap. Clap. BANG.

If you’re wondering what the “bang” is there for, it’s the sound of a stable door slamming shut.

“You may feel that at this stage of the pandemic, when rates of infection overall are declining, the advice is not relevant to you,” the letter goes on. “However, we think it is important that you are aware of your risk status and of the support that’s available to you.”

Well, thanks. Thanks very much.

Here’s the thing, Mr Hancock, and whatever committee of civil servants wrote this letter for you: we’ve been aware of my risk status ever since this thing started. My wife was talking about what we should do when the viral bomb first exploded because she was aware that my having Type 1 diabetes, as a result of my immune system eating my insulin-producing cells when I was two years old, would be a problem.

She was also justifiably nervous about what might happen should I need hospitalisation. I have other disabilities, you see, and with hospitals close to capacity at the time… well, you do the maths.

We understood the risks posed to me by the pandemic without needing to see the scientific research. And we acted accordingly. Diabetes UK says we were far from unusual in that respect.

The thing is, for the government, which obviously ought to be guided by fact, and risk assessments, and “the science”, that research was there. The baseline risk of dying for those with Type 1 diabetes is three-and-half times greater than for the average Briton, and double for people with Type 2, which can be controlled by diet if you’re lucky and usually strikes later in life. None of this is new information.

In fact, in August last year, a group of researchers published the results of a nationwide analysis in The Lancet showing that, “Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes were both independently associated with significant increased odds of in-hospital death with Covid-19”.

A related piece of work, in the same publication, stated: “This excess burden in people with diabetes is similar to previous coronavirus epidemics: the prevalence of diabetes was about 50 per cent among people with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), and diabetes was an independent predictor of mortality and morbidity in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).” Sars, by the way, was caused by a virus called Sars-CoV-1 and if that sounds familiar, it might be because the current scourge is caused by Sars-CoV-2. It emerged in 2002.

NHS England was aware of the research before it was published. Indeed it referenced it in May when it unveiled a helpline and online resources designed to help those of us with diabetes.

The announcement highlighted those scary-looking baseline risk numbers. But, but, but... we needed the data. We needed to do the research. We needed the QCovid risk tool to properly evaluate the risk before we could put you in the shielding group.

Did you though, minister? Did you? Did you listen to Diabetes UK, which has long been pressing for further research into the data and for a process that would enable clinicians to assess the risk of people with diabetes?

The consolation is that some people will get bumped up the vaccination queue. I’ve had my shot, but there are a lot of worried and frustrated diabetics who haven’t, and yet they have three and a half times or double the baseline risk (Diabetes UK has a good explainer on what that means).

Finding out you have a Covid age of 79 (that’s my number), or something even worse, is scary indeed and it serves to underline, again, the need for a public inquiry into the decisions that were taken. The change has come too late for the more than 30,000 diabetics who have already died.