Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what modelling he has undertaken on the potential effect of the (a) easing of covid-19 restrictions to allow the partial mixing of people and (b) removal of covid-19 restrictions on demand for (i) hospital and (ii) ICU beds; and if he will publish that modelling.

The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group investigated a range of different relaxation scenarios to understand the sensitivities and effect of taking each step in the roadmap. The modelling was iterated over several weeks and included the number of hospital admissions, deaths and level of hospital bed occupancy which might occur.

There is uncertainty on the number of cases, hospital admissions and deaths in each of the modelled scenarios, as it is not possible to precisely predict how people will behave at each stage of relaxation or how that behaviour will affect transmission. Evidence on the effectiveness of vaccines against severe disease and infection is also still developing.