Covid-19 Update Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Fay Jones
Main Page: Fay Jones (Conservative - Brecon and Radnorshire)Department Debates - View all Fay Jones's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
To be clear, children have a very low risk of suffering from covid, but we have been looking at the proportion of children who have tested positive and therefore may be transmitting the disease. Thankfully, the disease poses a very low risk to any individual child in terms of their becoming ill or worse, but the challenge is that it still transmits through children. That is why we have taken the decision that we have on schools in Leicester. Of course, there are many reasons and potential reasons why the outbreak has occurred in the way it has in Leicester. We are still getting to the bottom of those, but I undertake to ensure that directors of public health in other areas understand those reasons. For instance, we are doing work specifically on food processing factories, which seem to have a higher rate of infection around the world, including in America, Germany and also in north Wales. Of course, there is a challenge in the community to ensure that we understand properly the origins and the spread of the outbreak in Leicester and then look at similar cities where the case rate is thankfully much lower, but ensure that we learn the lessons for similar cities, precisely as the shadow Secretary of State said.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has mentioned the outbreaks in Wales. Does he agree that the Welsh and UK Governments working together would be beneficial for everyone, particularly on test, track and protect, but especially for my constituents in Brecon and Radnorshire, who share a border with England?
Matt Hancock
Yes. I know the Welsh borders extremely well. My hon. Friend is right to raise the need to work cross-border. We work as closely as we can, supporting the Welsh Government, for example, with their testing capacity and with test and trace. We are working on better data sharing between the two Governments, not least because of the importance for those who travel across the border.