Covid-19 Update

Greg Clark Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Cancer diagnosis and treatment has remained a top priority, and rightly so, throughout the entire pandemic. Some 2.47 million urgent referrals have been made and over 618,000 people have been treated between March 2020 and April 2021. The hon. Gentleman may also be interested to know that following the “Help Us, Help You” symptom awareness campaign, many of the so-called missing patients are starting to come forward and urgent referrals are rising. That is what we all want to see.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend to his post and place on record my thanks to his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), who was always assiduous in attending the Science and Technology Committee and, indeed, in coming to the Dispatch Box.

Is the Secretary of State aware that Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, one of the heroes of the Oxford vaccine, recently told my Committee that we need to be aware that new variants are likely to infect even the vaccinated, but:

“If…high protection against hospitalisation continues despite spread”

of cases

“in the community, the public health crisis is over”?

What will my right hon. Friend do to inform the public, and perhaps some officials, that we must move from being concerned about the number of cases of covid to focusing squarely on hospitalisation?

[Sajid Javid]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. This is a such a crucial point and it is one that I referred to earlier. Of course, cases are not unimportant, but because we now have the vaccine, thankfully, and in this country in particular so many people are getting vaccinated—of course, we want to see more and more people coming forward, but the take-up is excellent, especially compared with other countries—it is the vaccine that is going to break the link between case numbers and hospitalisation. As I said, we are absolutely starting to see that. The indications are very, very positive on this, and I hope that is the kind of news that my right hon. Friend will welcome.