Covid-19 Update

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Hayward

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his description of affairs, which, as ever, is as thoughtful as we would hope. However, I clarify and disagree with him in that correlation and causation are not the same things. I chose my words extremely carefully: there is a correlation with higher transmissibility, but there is no evidence that this is caused by the variant; I want to be crystal clear about that. I pay tribute to colleagues at the Sanger and at COG, the genomics collective that is doing the work on tracking down the science of the new variant. Their insight is profound and they will be playing into the decisions about whether any judgment on the variant should play a role in the decisions about any future restrictions.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister accept what I deem to be the position in relation to the younger generation: that they are suffering from lockdown fatigue and are not responding to government messages? I suggest that, rather than having government Ministers and some scientists conveying the message of the importance of acting responsibly, they consider along with Jonathan Van-Tam somebody like Marcus Rashford, Rio Ferdinand or Harry Kane to convey the message that we are failing to get across? In association with that and the comments that have been made elsewhere, can the Minister tell us whether he has any information, in light of the FDA’s announcement, as to whether the Moderna vaccine will be recognised in this country in the near future?

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I feel the point that my noble friend makes extremely personally. I am currently isolating with a 14 year-old; like many 14 year-olds, he and his friends never demonstrate any symptoms of Covid whatever and yet it would seem that they are carriers and vectors of the infection. The recent explosion in transmission in London and the south-east was led and probably caused by the 14 to 18-year-old age group, even though almost all of them are completely asymptomatic. We have worked with celebrities and opinion leaders in the youth groups to try to get this message across, but I point my noble friend to the announcement today of a very large increase in the use of asymptomatic testing in schools in the new year, as an indication of our commitment to ensuring that transmission among asymptomatic young people is contained.