Why 'Chain Of Trust' Is The Next Covid-19 Term You Need To Know About
Social distancing, self-isolation, super-spreader, shielding. These are all words that, prior to March this year, we never really uttered. Now, they’re part of our daily vocabulary.
The next Covid phrase that could be making its way onto that list is ‘chain of trust’, after a professor of medicine said that forming one may be “the only effective means” to reduce deaths during the coming winter without imposing a full lockdown.
Paul Hunter, Professor of Medicine at the University of East Anglia, was referring to a document shared with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) which suggested vulnerable people could form a ‘chain of trust’ with a select number of people to protect themselves against Covid-19.
So, what is a chain of trust? It refers to a strategy of infection control where people in regular contact with at-risk individuals – or ‘shielders’ – tweak their lifestyles to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19 to them.
People on the shielded patient list would surround themselves with a few of these trusted individuals.
Related...
The onus would be on those who are vulnerable to choose who is in their chain of trust, but also those in the chain of trust to adopt measures in their lives to reduce their own risk of transmission.
Those considered a transmission risk – and therefore who shouldn’t be included in a chain of trust – include: people who have Covid-19 symptoms and should be self-isolating, people who should be self-quarantining (for example, because they’ve come back to the UK from a country where cases are high), or people who have been in contact with anyone with symptoms, anyone who should be self-isolating or anyone who should be self-quarantining.
“Any individual who has had high risk contacts or been in a high risk setting...
