Shielding

That shielding is looked at by patient clinical teams. Children with cystic fibrosis have told to shield but the data shows that they are not as effected by COVID-19 as the adults with cystic fibrosis are due to access to CFTR modulators and no long term lung damage. Clinical teams should be allowed to guide patients on shielding. People with cystic fibrosis are also very aware of the dangers around them and so are very good at social distancing.

Due to the genetic nature of the disease cystic fibrosis is a very personal disease and can effect many people in different ways due to the thousands of different genetic disease causing mutations. Not everyone with Cystic fibrosis has lung damage or mucus in the lungs and so shouldn’t be treated as the same as an adult with many years of lung damage. New medications are now treating the underlying disease and not just treating the symptoms and so cystic fibrosis in a child now is very different to cystic fibrosis in an adult.