Covid-19: Shielding list expanded and youngest pupils to return to Scotland’s classrooms

The number of people being asked to shield in England is to be expanded, the government has announced. An extra 1.7 million people are expected to be added to the 2.3 million already on the list. Half of the group have not yet been vaccinated so will now be prioritised urgently by their local GPs. It comes after a new model was developed that takes into account extra factors rather than just health, including ethnicity, deprivation and weight, to work out a person’s risk of becoming seriously ill if they were to catch Covid.