Covid-19 Update Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Baroness Meacher
Main Page: Baroness Meacher (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Meacher's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]
My Lords, sadly, Professor Spiegelhalter has seriously questioned the Prime Minister’s rather splendid Moonshot mass testing proposal. I understand his concerns. Nevertheless, can the Minister assure the House that he will press for a significant investment in saliva home-testing kits, to enable families with a parent in the former shielded group and with children at school to live a reasonably normal life? Children need to be at school, but the lives of these parents are now in grave danger—I am sure the Minister appreciates this—with the R number above one and, as yet, no daily testing capacity. Can the Minister say when daily testing will be available for these families and other top-priority groups in the country?
Lord Bethell (Con)
I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, that saliva testing is a massive priority for the Government. I reassure her and Professor Spiegelhalter that the positive error rate in the saliva test trials in Southampton has been incredibly low—virtually zero. From that, we take great reassurance that this will be an effective vector for testing.