Wuhan Novel Coronavirus: Threat to UK Citizens

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I have a list of the current confirmed cases, which I am happy to place in the Library—it is probably not constructive to read it out—although the numbers are changing regularly. We are keeping travel advice and the monitoring of flights in and out of other Chinese cities under constant review. The advice at the moment is against all but essential travel to Wuhan. We will keep travel to other Chinese cities under close consideration.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with one of the precepts of Darwinian medicine that there is generally a trade-off between virulence and contagiousness and that, in the world of viruses, if you want to spread by casual contact, it tends to help to keep the patient healthy and standing on their feet—as indeed I am with a cold at the moment? If this virus does spread from man to man—sorry, person to person—there is a chance that it may reduce in virulence and it is, therefore, important to keep in perspective the warnings that we give people. While we must not underreact to this, it is also important that we do not overreact and cause major disruption to the economy, as has occasionally happened with responses to previous incidences of influenza.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

That was well put. Our view is that this is a proportionate and sensible response that is scalable and appropriate according to the evidence available. We will obviously be reviewing what is a new and emerging infection. Scientific understanding of the disease is evolving rapidly—essentially on a daily basis. We will obviously review the measures set out regularly.

It is important to set out what the symptoms are, in case anybody listening needs to understand. This is essentially a bad respiratory tract infection that could turn into pneumonia. At this stage around 2% of known cases have died. To compare mortality rates, SARS had one of 10% and Ebola 70%. That gives a level of perspective, but the picture is evolving and we will keep this under close review as the situation develops. Unsurprisingly, of course, within that context those at greatest risk are the vulnerable, the elderly or those with underlying health conditions, so the advice is to come forward if such symptoms occur.