Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the decision of 19 March 2020 that covid-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease (HCID), whether the 4 nations public health HCID group and Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens considered the availability of personal protective equipment in their review of their interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify covid-19 as a HCID.

Neither the four nations public health high consequence infectious disease (HCID) group nor the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) considered the availability of personal protective equipment when reviewing the interim recommendation of January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as a HCID. Recommendations provided by both the four nations public health HCID group and the ACDP on the classification of COVID-19 were based entirely on the scientific evaluation of the HCID criteria, which considers disease characteristics and the response required to manage the disease. The use and availability of specific personal protective equipment is not a criterion.