Covid-19 Update

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the importance of cancer and he will know that it remains a priority for the NHS. That is one reason why recently, when the Government set out the extra catch-up funding for the NHS over the next three years to pay for a lot more elective operations and diagnosis, cancer was a priority in that.

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

As in South Africa, many people in this country have had covid, particularly young people and school age children. Can my right hon. Friend tell us what is the estimation of that in this country? He must be aware that while he was delivering his statement, in No. 10, Chris Whitty was saying that hospitalisations and deaths have gone down, so why are we having a kneejerk reaction today when we were not going to do it until Monday at the earliest? We should have waited.

[Sajid Javid]

I am happy to answer that. Thankfully, hospitalisations have fallen in recent weeks; they are at roughly 6,000 in English hospitals at the moment. Although they have fallen, however, the numbers are still relatively high. It is good and encouraging that they are falling, but all those hospitalisations at this time are to do with the delta variant. With omicron, as I mentioned in response to a previous question, there will be a lag between infections and hospitalisation. With delta, that has often been about 10 or 12 days, or even longer. We are not quite sure what it will be with omicron, but we know that there will be a lag. The history of the pandemic has always backed that up.