Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. I know very well the impact of long covid; it is something that I understand deeply. We are in the process of setting up those clinics and there will be further information on this very shortly.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Given that the Office for National Statistics has said today that deaths have increased three weeks in a row, and given the rising prevalence of the virus, can the Secretary of State understand the upset and the anger over the Excel spreadsheet blunder? Can he tell us today what he could not tell us yesterday: how many of the 48,000 contacts—not the index cases, the contacts—have been traced and how many are now isolating?

[Matt Hancock]

We have obviously been continuing to contact both the index cases and the contacts. The total number of contacts depends on how many contacts each index case has. That information will of course be made available in the normal way when it has been completed. However, we cannot know in advance how many contacts there are because the interviews with the index cases have to be done first.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

So essentially thousands of people who have been exposed to the virus could be wandering around not knowing they have been exposed and infecting people, and the Secretary of State cannot even tell us if they have been traced.

Let me move on to something else. I listened carefully to what the Secretary of State said about a vaccine yesterday in light of the news that the Government are aiming to vaccinate about 30 million people—just under 50% of the population. There has been an expectation that the whole of the population would be vaccinated, not least because he said at the Downing Street press conference that he “would hope, given the scale of the crisis, we would have the vaccine and everyone would be given the vaccine.” Those are his words. We accept the clinical guidance. However, can he tell us how long it will take, for the 50% of people who will not be vaccinated, for life to return to normal for them?

[Matt Hancock]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, decisions on the distribution of any vaccine have not been taken. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is the body that advises the Government on the appropriate clinical prioritisation of vaccines. It has published an interim guide, which he well knows about and we have discussed. That sets out the order of priority as an interim measure, but we await the data from the clinical trials of the vaccine before we will come to a clinically validated full roll-out plan. We are putting in place the logistical plans now, but on the decisions as to the clinical order of priority, we will take the evidence from the Joint Committee.