Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
It is worth waiting for 14 June, when we will be saying more on this, but suffice it to say two things: first, even if someone has had two doses of either vaccine —I have had this experience in my own family—they can still contract covid and should therefore be isolating and quarantining; secondly, we are also looking at ways in which contacts of people who may have contracted covid can be regularly tested instead of isolating.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his responses so far and for the magnificent effort. I had my second vaccine yesterday, and just to show how national that was, the person who gave me the injection was a doctor from Lincolnshire. I believe that this very much shows that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland works better together, and that this is a supreme example of that.
We understand that things will change depending on the circumstances and that localised lockdowns may be the way to ensure that areas with low numbers are able to allow people to live safely. Can the Minister outline what parameters will establish localised lockdowns and tell us whether the same approach will be taken UK-wide by the devolved regions?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am very pleased to hear that my hon. Friend has had his second dose; when people get that text message, they should please come forward and have their second dose. We are looking to ensure that the whole country comes out of this together, hence the advice being very much about exercising caution and self-responsibility. People actually get this; we see in much of the research data that they know the things that can add to the risk and that they should therefore abstain from doing those things while we vaccinate at scale to get to the place where we can all hopefully get our lives back.