Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to (a) monitor and (b) mitigate against the potential effect of rises in the number of covid-19 cases in China.

As the Government announced on 30 December, we are introducing a number of measures in England in response to the increase in COVID-19 cases in China, and in particular the risk of new variants emerging. To monitor the impact, the UK Health Security Agency began non-mandatory PCR testing with genomic sequencing at Heathrow airport, to detect new variants among passengers arriving on direct flights from China. Also, NHS England is now prioritising sequencing of symptomatic patients admitted to hospital who have been to China in the previous fortnight. To mitigate the impact, passengers arriving from China to England now need to show a negative COVID-19 pre-departure test taken no more than two days prior to departure. This will reduce the risk of people with COVID-19 boarding a flight to the United Kingdom. The situation and the need for these temporary measures will be kept under review.