Coronavirus: New Cases

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

We are finding that vaccination is clearly the best way to break the link between catching Covid and hospitalisation. Sadly, a large part of our population still has not been vaccinated. Even with the third booster, 80% of that age group have come forward but 20% of the older age group still have not done so. We are trying to target groups that have not yet been vaccinated to make sure that we offer them the best protection possible.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend think that an inquiry will be carried out into the Covid pandemic, and if there is one, does he think that it will prove that every mutation has made this virus more transmissible but less lethal?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

Undoubtedly there will be an inquiry; in fact, the Government announced that there would be one. There will also be lots of independent inquiries and academics writing about what different countries got right and got wrong. When speaking to my friends who are Health Ministers in other countries, we all say that, looking back, there are things that we could have done differently, in various ways, if we had had that knowledge. But we also have to be very careful about the fallacy of hindsight, and of saying that we would have acted differently had we been in that situation. We can learn from hindsight, and we need to make sure that we do so for future pandemics.