(1/6) Lots of you have been asking whether you need to follow the shielding advice from the government. Here are the facts on shielding, and what it means for people with #diabetes. 
(2/6) Shielding means staying at home and avoiding all face-to-face contact for at least 12 weeks. It’s a way of protecting extremely vulnerable people who are at a very high risk of severe illness from coronavirus.
(3/6) Who is classed as extremely vulnerable? At the moment, these are people with certain types of cancers and severe respiratory conditions. You can find the full list of people who should be shielding on the government website.
(4/6) There may be some people with diabetes who do need to shield because of other conditions, such as cystic fibrosis-related diabetes or kidney disease. But under current guidance, most people with diabetes don’t need to shield.
(5/6) If you haven't had a message from the NHS yet, then you're not being instructed to shield & you should follow the stay at home rules. If you think you should have received a letter & are worried about this, the government advice is to try to contact your GP to discuss this.
(6/6) For more info and advice, including the stay at home rules, visit: diabetes.org.uk/coronavirus
(1/3) *Correction* We're sorry that we included kidney disease as part of our advice yesterday around shielding, & this was wrong - we've checked with Kidney Care UK & they have reassured us that people on dialysis do not need to shield, but should continue to socially distance.
(2/3) This means that having both diabetes and kidney disease doesn’t automatically mean you have to shield - if you’ve got other health needs on top of this that make you extremely vulnerable, you might need to and in this case you’ll get a letter from the NHS.
(3/3) Please visit Kidney Care UK’s website for more information: kidneycareuk.org/news-and-campa…. We're sorry if this caused you any anxiety.
