Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has of the implications for his policies of the study on herd immunity entitled, Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Spain (ENE-COVID): a nationwide, population-based seroepidemiological study, published in The Lancet; and if he will make a statement.

The response to COVID-19 continues to be guided by science and learning from domestic and international research is a key part of this.

In order to gain answers to critical questions such as those related to recovery from and potential immunity to COVID-19, the United Kingdom Government is conducting some of the biggest seroprevalence surveys in the world. This includes using lab-based tests to monitor the number of people that are presenting an antibody response and how this response changes over time.

The Government has made no assessment of the possibility of the UK population achieving herd immunity as it is not the Government’s policy, nor its aim for herd immunity to be achieved.