Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether travellers to the UK are obliged to quarantine if they have had a positive antibody test for covid-19.

On 8 June new rules for international travellers were introduced in order to reduce the risk of new cases from abroad.

Before considering whether antibody testing could ever be used to lessen or exempt specific individuals from self-isolation measures, we first need to improve our understanding of how the immune system responds to COVID-19.

COVID-19 is a new disease and the science around ‘immunity’ to the virus remains uncertain. There is no strong evidence yet to suggest that those who have been proven to have had the virus are immune. We do not know, for example, how long an antibody response to the virus lasts nor whether having antibodies means one does not transmit the virus to others.