Covid-19 Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

No, I will not apologise for speeding up the booster programme to protect the health of the British public, and I will not apologise for asking the NHS to make it a priority. If the hon. Lady believes we should not be vaccinating people in this country, why does she not just say so?

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It has been suggested more than once that, when deaths with covid are announced each day, it should simultaneously be stated how many of them were of unvaccinated people or of people with underlying health conditions or other specific vulnerabilities. Will the Secretary of State now undertake to do that? Did he notice, as I and no doubt others did, that the Prime Minister said this morning that one person in the UK had died with omicron, but the shadow Secretary of State said the death was a result of the virus. Does the Secretary of State know which version is correct?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend is right to point to the distinction between, sadly, people who die with covid and those who die of covid. There is a difference. I have come to the Dispatch Box before to say, certainly with the delta variant—we do not have enough data on omicron yet for reasons that he will understand—that, as I am told by the NHS, approximately 20% of the people in hospital who have covid are there because they happen to have covid, rather than them being there because of covid.