Covid: Fifth Anniversary

Debate between Lillian Jones and Nusrat Ghani

Thursday 12th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I think the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) needs to respond to the first intervention. I appreciate what is happening, though, and he may wish to take the second intervention shortly afterwards.

[John McDonnell]

I have never seen an intervention on an intervention. I will follow on from that point. The clinicians are trying to get across to me that, as others have said, covid doubles the risk of a heart attack. We have seen heart attacks, strokes, pulmonary embolisms and deep-vein thrombosis. In addition, the team is trying to get across the message that long covid is not simply fatigue. It is an umbrella term for a range of chronic, multi-system pathologies that have an effect.

There is one issue that affects children in particular. The work of Dr Danielle Beckman has shown that covid breaches the blood-brain barrier. As a result, it infects the neurons and causes persistent brain inflammation, thereby imposing cognitive impediments.