Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support long-term research studies on covid-19 immunity.

The Government, through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation are jointly funding the UK Coronavirus Immunology Consortium to address key questions around the immune system’s response to COVID-19.

We are also supporting immunity studies in specific groups, including the SARS-CoV-2 Immunity and Reinfection EvaluatioN (SIREN) study in health care workers and the Vivaldi study in care home residents and workers. The NIHR’s Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections is also looking at the size and longevity of the immune response.