Covid-19 Update

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for the point he just made. If he will allow me, I will take that back and try to get an answer for him.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I hear from colleagues in South Africa that nasal swabs alone are not as effective at picking up the new variant and that there have been many false negatives reported. I would welcome the Minister’s comment on that, as we are moving to more nasal swabs. I also suggest that it would be more sensible to encourage the use of face coverings in offices and to encourage people to work from home wherever it is feasible in terms of employers, so that the next two weeks can be used by scientists to really identify other problems that might be associated. This would help to safeguard NHS clinical staff as well as hospitals. If people are getting false negatives and then being admitted to hospital, it puts the very staff we need to keep at work at risk.