Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risk of new COVID-19 variants emerging in China.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitors all domestic and internationally circulating COVID-19 variants using United Kingdom sequencing data and the international database, GISAID. Lineages are reviewed weekly for trends, analysis and risk assessments. While China has not submitted recent sequences to GISAID, variants would be detected through the global horizon scanning process. The UKHSA works with international partners and the World Health Organization on variant surveillance.