Diabetics may have to remain at home even after the coronavirus lockdown is lifted. People with the blood sugar condition are at a significantly greater risk from Covid-19, with one in three people who have died in UK hospitals being diabetic.
Those with autoimmune type 1 diabetes are three-and-a-half times more likely to die from coronavirus than non-diabetics, while those with type 2 diabetes - generally linked with being overweight - are twice as likely to die.
Despite this alarming statistic, diabetics are currently classed as "clinically vulnerable" rather than "clinically extremely vulnerable".
Only Brits belonging to the second group received letters from their GPs instructing them to "shield" by not leaving their homes at all,