Covid-19 Update

Laura Farris Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I think it is not right for the hon. Lady to suggest that the Government have ignored the need to combat the virus with better air filtration and better ventilation. A lot of the funding that the Government have provided during the course of the pandemic—for example, extra funding to care home providers—has been there precisely to introduce and help to fund some of these measures.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his new post. I know that he will share the view of many of my constituents in west Berkshire that we must do all we can to avoid another national lockdown. In the event that vaccine efficacy should falter as we head into the winter months because of, say, a new variant, what extra steps is his Department taking to ensure that this winter will not be a repeat of the last?

[Sajid Javid]

I can tell my hon. Friend about just one of the measures that we are taking. A huge number of tests are carried out—over half a million a day—and that gives us a certain insight into how the virus is changing, if it is. The genome sequencing resources that we have are the best in the world; we do almost half of the genome sequencing in the world. That is fed directly to our scientists and our world-leading vaccine programme and taken into account as we develop new vaccines. My hon. Friend knows about the booster programme, which will continue into next year—and for who knows how long? Every time we have a booster we will be doing everything we can to take into account changes in the virus.