ArticlePLOS global public health2022
Critical weaknesses in shielding strategies for COVID-19.
Article in PLOS global public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions as implemented in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 transmission in the UK: a rapid mapping review and interactive evidence gap map.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2024Review
- Ethical dilemma arises from optimizing interventions for epidemics in heterogeneous populations.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Rationale for the shielding policy for clinically vulnerable people in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study.BMJ open · 2023Review
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions and the emergence of pathogen variants.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- Antigenic evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in immunocompromised hosts.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has led to a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions being implemented around the world to curb transmission. However, the economic and social costs of some of these measures, especially lockdowns, has been high. An alternative and widely discussed public health strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic would have been to 'shield' those most vulnerable to COVID-19 (minimising their contacts with others), while allowing infection to spread among lower risk individuals with the aim of reaching herd immunity. Here we retrospectively explore the effectiveness of this strategy using a stochastic SEIR framework, showing that even under the unrealistic assumption of perfect shielding, hospitals would have been rapidly overwhelmed with many avoidable deaths among lower risk individuals. Crucially, even a small (20%) reduction in the effectiveness of shielding would have likely led to a large increase (>150%) in the number of deaths compared to perfect shielding. Our findings demonstrate that shielding the vulnerable while allowing infections to spread among the wider population would not have been a viable public health strategy for COVID-19 and is unlikely to be effective for future pandemics.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.