Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

This question arose in the debate last week and I followed it up with the Chief Medical Officer. As far as I understand it, there is no issue with the testing. It is possible that some people seemingly recover—their symptoms fade from view—but they are still infected with the virus. We are working hard to understand how this works.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, first, as I understand it, currently the test is laboratory-based. How much emphasis are the Government, in their research, putting on a rapid diagnostic test that can be used at the bedside or immediately? The differential diagnosis between diseases that manifest with high temperature and a cough is absolutely essential in this area. I say this based on my experience: I was in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak. Secondly, the one piece of behavioural advice that is very clear is about washing hands. If you were in Sierra Leone or west Africa during that time, you did not enter a public building without washing your hands. It was fairly crude—it was a bucket of water with disinfectant in it—but it was in the high commission and every hotel and office. The idea that the only kind of handwashing that is acceptable is conventional handwashing in circumstances that people expect might not be sufficient if this goes further.

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to emphasise the question of diagnosis. I know from my own experience that the delays that people experience create huge anxiety and prevent them making the important decisions they need to make for themselves and their families about how to do the right thing—self-isolating if necessary and making provisions for their other family members. A ferocious race is under way at the moment. The Government have instructed six private companies, which are all seeking to build exactly what the noble Baroness describes: a bedside testing kit that can be rolled out across the country to provide swift, on-the-spot diagnosis. We are hopeful that that will come shortly. On handwashing, I too have travelled in Africa and know exactly the kinds of provisions she talks about. The advice from the CMO is that we are not there yet but nothing is off the table.