Covid-19 Update

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am grateful for my noble friend’s kind comments. On the NHS winter plan, he is right that I implied that it would be published. I have looked into this and my understanding now is that it is not a document due to be published imminently, as a winter plan was published in the autumn of last year. There are plans in place and I am working hard to try to provide my noble friend with whatever information I can.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

I asked the noble Lord on Tuesday what assessment the Government have made of Covid deaths and long Covid rates after the proposed 19 July changes. He did not answer. Will he do so now?

What incentive is there to uphold the test and trace system when a common interest between employer and employee is keeping their workplace open, particularly if sick pay is poor and self-isolation an unaffordable choice? If, as the noble Lord says, we do not know how many people use the app, how will we know if its use is dropping like a stone? What evidence will we have that it is becoming less effective?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I did not quite say that I did not know how many people use the app; I said that we do not know who is using it. We keep an eye on it and, to date, its use has not dropped, but we are naturally concerned that trust in the app will deteriorate and that is why we are looking carefully at the advice that comes out of being pinged. Some 19 million people have the app. It is an enormously valuable resource, and one that we believe has made a big impact.

Predicting long Covid and infections is extremely difficult because we do not know what the infection rate is going to be. We are in a race against the virus. I hope that very soon the impact of the vaccine will bring R below one and the disease will start going down instead of up. But I cannot tell the noble Baroness, exactly when that date will be.