Covid-19

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, who is so wise in these matters, has answered his own question. If necessary, we will do what it takes, but the aspiration is clear: we are seeking to get the vaccination level to such a high rate that R is below 1 and no further lockdowns are necessary. That is an honourable, reasonable and epidemiologically sound objective.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is living proof that, despite having two jabs, 20% of individuals can catch and be spreaders of coronavirus. If this is the case, why are the Government, as a matter of policy, going to use internal Covid passports as a public health measure to deal with the virus in large venues? At best, they will give individuals and venues a false sense of security. At worst, for those who are double jabbed, infected but asymptomatic, they will be useless in the fight against the spread of this disease.

[Lord Bethell (Con) [V]]

My Lords, this is the clinical advice given to us by clinicians. I cannot answer the whole question in the round in this brief session, but a number of considerations include not only that vaccines offer a significantly reduced rate of infection but that the level of infection is much lower, the viral load is much lower, and therefore the infectiousness is much lower. The aggregate effect is that a group of people who have been vaccinated, with a few who have the disease, is less infectious than a group of people who have been tested, however good the test.