Three years on from the Covid-19 lockdown

March 23 marks the date on which, in March 2020, the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave out the message that we should all stay home. Many people with kidney disease had already taken a decision to stay at home and we at Kidney Care UK realised that we needed to find out what information was available to those who might be at risk. We then started to publish Covid-19 information on our website.

We have consistently heard from you, through many surveys and our Question Time webinars and direct communication, that information is essential, and that having a number of tools to protect us from Covid-19 is so important. That is why we continue to speak up for people with kidney disease with policymakers and believe that as we have to live with Covid-19, we need access to all of those tools. These previously included societal protections, but continue to include vaccines, protective treatments and medicines – and societal understanding. It is not good enough that a structured protection plan for Covid-19 prevention and protection is not in place, and uncertainty remains, althoughit’s better news that at least one Covid-19 treatment suitable for kidney patients is available.

However, ongoing support is important. Alongside a number of other charities we have co-signed a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about what we need now, to ensure that better policies are put in place to protect the vulnerable. This is what we are asking for.

1. Ensure that a rapid system of evaluating new protective/prophylactic Covid-19 drugs and treatments is developed and implemented as a priority.
2. Reverse the decision to suspend the ONS Covid-19 Survey Data publication.
3. Ensure immunocompromised household members are included as eligible for the spring Covid-19 vaccine booster programme.
4. Ensure better communication with patients, including direct ministerial consultation with concerned charities and patient representative groups and parliamentary colleagues to ensure transparent decision making.
5. Appoint a minister with specific responsibility for the clinically vulnerable and immunocompromised.

Policy Director Fiona Loud has summarised some of what we have learned and what we have experienced in a recent talk.

We pay tribute to our medical colleagues for their continued support and their dedication, and continue to remember our own colleagues – policy team member and kidney patient Amjid Ali and our Chair of Trustees Professor Donal O’Donoghue – and the many others who lost their lives to Covid-19.

While evidence shows that vaccination does give some protection for people who are immunocompromised, it also shows that some of us do not get the same level of protection as others.

We encourage people to take up the Covid-19 vaccinations we are offered.

The rates of hospitalisation and deaths from Covid-19 among people with kidney disease are also far lower than earlier in the pandemic – Dr Laurie Tomlinson shared the latest data about the risk to people with kidney disease at our December 2022 webinar:

• Fewer than 2 in 100 people who contracted Covid-19 had to be admitted to hospital
• Of the very few people who were admitted to hospital, fewer than 1 in 4 died

Government advice from each of the four nations of the UK is that if you are immunosuppressed you are still encouraged to keep yourself safe, avoid people with symptoms of Covid-19, consider keeping your distance when out and about if it feels right for you, increasing ventilation if you have visitors to your home and wear a mask in crowded public spaces.

If you do get Covid-19, report it so you can access treatment.

In England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a spring Covid-19 vaccine booster dose is being rolled out shortly.