Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that BAME people are adequately represented in COVID-19 clinical trials.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department, through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), is working in partnership with the Centre for Black and Minority Ethnic Health in Leicester to ensure that black, Asian and minority ethnic communities have the information they need to take part and stay informed about COVID-19 research. The NIHR also requires a limited amount of demographic data on participants in all prioritized urgent COVID-19 studies to be collected to ensure recruitment is representative of the population. It is also actively supporting researchers to tackle the barriers that might stop some communities participating.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how long it will take, under the test and trace service, to trace people's contacts following a COVID-19 test; and what assessment they have made of whether this is quick enough to isolate people before infection spreads.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government launched its new NHS Test and Trace service on 28 May 2020.
If someone experiences symptoms of COVID-19 and gets tested, systems are in place to ensure that the NHS Test and Trace service automatically receives information if their test result is positive. Providing NHS Test and Trace have contact details, such as email, text or landline, they will aim to contact people within 24 hours of receiving the test result.
The more rapidly we can identify people who may have been at risk of infection and, if necessary, tell them to self-isolate, the more effectively we can reduce the R rate and the spread of the virus and maintain transmission at low levels.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to establish a permanent body to (1) seek to avert future pandemics, and (2) ensure affordable, widespread availability of vaccines and therapies to treat COVID-19 as they become available.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The United Kingdom believes that the World Health Organization (WHO) has an important role to play in leading the health response to COVID-19 and in longer term leadership in global health including preparedness. We also want to see WHO continue to learn lessons on how to improve its response to global health emergencies and as such would expect a full review of all elements of their response once they are out of response mode, as has occurred after previous Public Health Emergencies of International Concern. The UK intends to engage constructively with a future review, including working with other governments.
Since 2017, we have, through the Department’s Global Health Security Programme, used our public health expertise to provide technical support to countries. This technical support and knowledge sharing helps build resilient public health care systems to prevent, detect and respond to disease and to better manage future public health emergencies including pandemics.
The UK supports strong mechanisms to promote equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostics. At the Global Vaccine Summit on 4 June 2020, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, launched a new Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for COVID-19 vaccines aimed at incentivising vaccine manufacturers to produce sufficient quantities of eventual COVID-19 vaccines, and to ensure access for developing countries with a primary focus on subsidising vaccines for the poorest countries. The UK committed £48 million to the AMC at the Summit.
In addition, the UK supported AstraZeneca’s announcement at the Summit of a $750 million agreement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi to support the manufacturing, procurement and distribution of 300 million vaccine doses globally this year, including for the world’s poorest countries. AstraZeneca also announced a deal with the Serum Institute of India to manufacture a further 1 billion doses for distribution to developing countries.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many antibodies have been identified which have had a neutralising effect on the COVID-19 virus.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Characterisation of neutralising antibodies is still in its infancy. The role of neutralising antibodies in providing treatment or as a marker for protection against reinfection is not yet fully understood. Scientists at Public Health England and elsewhere are working in this area, and conclusions will be reported in scientific journals as new evidence emerges.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of low dose radiation in the treatment of COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Chest X-rays or chest computed tomography scans are frequently performed for radiological lung assessments during which patients may be exposed to low doses of ionising radiation. Public Health England has not undertaken any specific assessment of the value of this diagnostic approach in the management of COVID-19. Medical exposure to ionising radiation is justified by the clinical team providing care on the basis that the benefit outweighs any potential risks to health.
There have been suggestions in the scientific literature that low dose radiation exposure of the lungs may be an effective treatment for COVID-19 related pneumonia, but this has yet to be proven.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to change the COVID-19 social distancing guidance from two metres.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The plans to change the COVID-19 social distancing guidance from two metres is under constant review. The Government continues to encourage two metre social distancing wherever that is possible.
In easing the lockdown, the Government accepts that maintaining two metre social distancing may be difficult in certain circumstances and will be issuing updated workplace guidance to address that and, subject to legislation, is mandating the use of face coverings on public transport from 15 June.
The Government collaborates closely with Public Health England to ensure guidance on two metre social distancing is kept up to date as regulations change in light of latest medical and scientific evidence.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what updates they receive on the regional values of the reproduction index for the COVID-19 virus; and what plans they have to publish such values on a routine basis.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Transparency, including on the evidence informing the views of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), is vital in helping to maintain the public’s trust and grow our collective understanding of the disease, while also helping to explain how scientific advice to the Government is being formed. The Government is working to publish evidence documents and studies, which have formed the basis of SAGE’s discussions and advice to Ministers, regularly, and will publish more evidence in the coming weeks.
SAGE does not currently publish the R value on a regional level. SAGE publishes an updated estimate of the United Kingdom-wide R range on a weekly basis.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the effect of an increase in temperature on the (1) environmental endurance, and (2) transmission, of COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The relationship between meteorological factors and COVID-19 hotspots, transmission (passing from one person to another), and environmental endurance (survival of the virus in the environment) have not been clarified sufficiently in any country, or globally. Much of the information currently available on transmission and the occurrence of COVID-19 hotspots relies on understanding the differences in epidemiology between other known species of human coronaviruses and COVID-19.
Carefully designed studies take time to gather observations and currently results around how COVID-19 effects its interaction with environmental, population and societal aspects are not yet available. Therefore, the current Public Health England (PHE) infection control advice assumes that the transmission characteristics of COVID-19 are similar to those of the 2003 SARS-CoV outbreak.
PHE continues to review and consider evidence on the potential association between environmental factors, including temperature, and the health impacts of COVID-19, as it emerges.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the possibility of the UK population achieving herd immunity to COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 was first identified, the United Kingdom Government has set out to mitigate against the spread of the virus in the UK population through various measures, including promotion of hand and respiratory hygiene and social distancing. This has subsequently led to a reduction in R and new daily cases identified, helping to protect the National Health Service and save lives.
The Government has made no assessment of the possibility of the UK population achieving herd immunity as it is not the Government’s policy, nor its aim for herd immunity to be achieved. Whilst it is not and has never been UK policy to stride for herd immunity, the proportion of the UK population who have had COVID-19 and recovered will gradually increase over time unless disease activity ceases entirely. As we understand the science at this juncture, it appears that most individuals who recover from COVID-19 do develop antibodies.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to what extent they will be relying on machine learning and data held by large commercial organisations to prioritise people for testing or to determine limitations of movement in the next phase of the COVID-19 lockdown.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government continues to be guided by the best scientific and clinical advice to aid decision-making but is not using automatic intelligence or machine learning algorithms to prioritise the allocation of testing for COVID-19.