Lord Loomba
Main Page: Lord Loomba (Crossbench - Life peer)Covid-19: Economic Costs
Lord Loomba Excerpts
Baroness Penn
My Lords, I agree that the Government are in a different position in their response to the target now than they were at the start of the outbreak. We now know a lot more about the virus and we have developed in our research institutions the first effective therapeutic response to it. The test and trace system has been going for around seven weeks and has shown an increase in its efficacy week on week. We want to build on that so that we can have a more targeted and localised response to any future outbreaks.
Lord Loomba (CB)
My Lords, bringing in quarantine measures for different countries, such as Spain on Sunday, without any warning has severe repercussions for those businesses and families affected. Can the Minister say what rate of infection triggers such a rule change, or do the Government use some other measure before making their decision? If so, what can be done to give people more warning in order to lessen the adverse impact?
Baroness Penn
My noble friend the Minister in the Department for Transport will be able to give more detail about this subject in response to the Private Notice Question, but I can say that new data from the Spanish health ministry was published on Friday showing that new cases reported across the country on Thursday and Friday were up by 75% on those reported for the previous two days. This has been a fast-moving and changing situation in Spain to which the Government have reacted.