Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 17 February 2021 to Question 147891 on Coronavirus: Screening, what evidence the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies based its assessment on when assessing the effect that discharging patients from hospital into the community without testing had on covid-19 community infection rates.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) considered the contribution of nosocomial infections to hospital COVID-19 cases and the overall epidemic from February to July 2020 at SAGE meeting 63 on 22 October 2020. The minutes of the meeting are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sage-63-minutes-coronavirus-covid-19-response-22-october-2020

The related updated paper considering ‘The contribution of nosocomial infections to the first wave, 28 January 2021’, was published on 12 February 2021. The paper provides an estimate of hospitalised COVID-19 cases that could have been due to nosocomial transmission. A key conclusion of the paper is that nosocomial infections and onward community cases due to nosocomial infection may lead to a substantial number of subsequent COVID-19 hospital admissions. The paper is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-and-lshtm-the-contribution-of-nosocomial-infections-to-the-first-wave-28-january-2021