Wuhan Coronavirus

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord is right to emphasise this point. The clinical treatment of the virus is in part through the medicine itself. We have to be realistic about whether a medical solution to the virus will be found before the peak epidemic. One is instinctively optimistic that such a thing can happen, but it cannot be guaranteed. However, there are also the procedures and arrangements for nursing and looking after patients as they go through the cycle of the virus, and such best practice is absolutely the priority of the Chief Medical Officer. Arrangements have been put in place to spread that best practice through the trusts and CCGs that provide front-line care.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I was listening closely to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, when he was asking his question earlier. If I heard him rightly, he said that if this becomes a pandemic, four out of five people in this country might become infected. That is a very alarming number, not just because four out of five people will get ill but because of the impact on all kinds of social and other activities, including economic ones. Do the Government themselves recognise that figure as a likely outcome in a pandemic situation? Is any information currently available about the immunity, either short-term or long-term, that may or may not be conferred on those who have already succumbed to the virus?