Covid-19 Update

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s question. My right honourable friend was very clear. The Chief Medical Officer analysed our assessment of the disease and its impact, and assessed that it had not substantially changed as a result of these data. The Statement from my right honourable friend is crystal clear. I will be glad to send the noble Lord a copy of that Statement if he does not have it.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, this afternoon’s release from the Office for National Statistics tells us that:

“There were 215 deaths involving … COVID-19 … in England and Wales in the week ending 25 September”.


This remains far below the numbers seen earlier in the pandemic and accounts for just 2.2% of all deaths in the latest week. Our liberties are being trashed and our freedoms removed. When will the Government get down to putting some hope into things? Most people do not know what the rules are, and if they do they are getting round them. I should like a commitment as to when we can open up surgeries and hospitals, and a promise that by Christmas people will be able to visit their elderly relatives in care homes and those who are unfortunate enough to be in hospital. Can we not have a bit of hope, as opposed to this constant gloom?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I hear my noble friend’s frustration, and he is right to call for hope. We all want some hope—we are all feeling exhausted by Covid. But it is ironic that my noble friend mentions the low level of deaths as though that were a bad thing. To me, that number is a source of huge pride, because it shows that we have kept a lid on Covid—our NHS is improving the treatment of people who have Covid and we are winning the battle against Covid. I celebrate that.