Coronavirus

Steve Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Member sets out one of the many reasons why there are downsides to closing schools. There are significant downsides, especially because of the knock-on consequences it has on the number of staff available for critical public services, including the NHS and social care. There are many considerations we have to take into account if we close schools, and that is why we have no plans for a mass closure of schools. Of course, individual schools will sometimes be advised to be closed, but because one of the saving graces of this virus is that it does not have a big impact on children, there are fewer benefits to closing schools, and she sets out one of the downsides.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State elaborate on social distancing? What would it entail, particularly for more vulnerable groups such as older people?

[Matt Hancock]

There are different types of social distancing. There is what is essentially case isolation, which is where somebody has symptoms and we are asking them to self-isolate. At the moment, if somebody has moderate or heavy symptoms, they should self-isolate, and we have talked about going, at the right time, to self-isolation—staying at home—for people with mild symptoms. There is also, of course, the need to ensure that older people and vulnerable people, for whom this virus has a bigger impact, can get the right advice on self-isolating, and that is something we are working on.

Here the timing really is critical, because the evidence of past epidemics and past crises of this nature shows that people do tire of these sorts of social distancing measures, so if we start them too early, they lose their effect and actually it is worse. The social science and the behavioural science are a very important part of the scientific advice that we rely on.