Covid-19: Winter Plan

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, we think we have been able to get the virus down through a tiered system, and we will continue to do that. The guidance about the number of people we are allowed to mix with in households is clear and, alas, it will remain very tough. It will remain tough because that is the way to get through and beyond Christmas, and through the new year. The exit strategy is very simple: it is to use these three techniques—tough tiering, mass testing and a roll-out of the vaccine to keep the virus down. We must push it down further until such time as we are able to say that all those who are vulnerable have been vaccinated and we can move forward and go back completely to normal. As has been pointed out several times already, that terminus, that end date, looks like being Easter. We may be able to do better and make considerable improvements before Easter, but we should aim for Easter.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

On 2 November, I asked the Prime Minister what he felt we had learned in the summer after the end of the first lockdown, and he said that when people were contacted and tested positive, they should isolate. He went on:

“It does not look to me as though the numbers or the proportions have been good enough. We need to get those up in the next phase”.—[Official Report, 2 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 58.]

Will the Prime Minister update me on that point? Yes, mass testing is critical and the vaccine may well save us, but there will be a gap between the first and the last.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to say that that has been a problem; but in fact, more people have been self-isolating than is sometimes supposed or alleged, and they have done a great thing. We have instituted means-tested payments to help support those who are isolating, but what will now really change things are the lateral flow tests, which we hope will enable someone to have a shorter period of quarantine. They will not have to stick to the full 14 days, and they can get a rapid turnaround test—a lateral flow test—after a much shorter period. That is what we are aiming for.