Coronavirus: Disease Control

(asked on 30th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is his policy to implement an elimination strategy in respect of covid-19.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 13th July 2020

Total eradication of SARS-CoV-2 globally is unlikely (unless there is some unexpected biological change in the virus). Elimination nationally (i.e. bringing the number of locally acquired cases to zero) may be possible transiently but is highly unlikely to be possible permanently. Though other countries appear to have eliminated the virus locally, it is still early in the pandemic and the virus is very likely to reappear in these countries. Instead of eradication/elimination, a realistic public health goal would be to have very good control of transmission so that the number of new cases, and therefore the disease burden, is very low.

Reticulating Splines