Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that NHS Test and Trace functions successfully after the restrictions put in place by the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 are lifted.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Since the most recent national restrictions in January, the Government has continued to to ensure that NHS Test and Trace functions successfully. NHS Test and Trace has the capacity to respond to increases in demand and is able to test over 750,000 people a day.
Contact tracing services have also increased. The number of cases being transferred to the contact tracing system in the week 4 February to 10 February 2021 was 105,764, compared to 3,571 in the week 2 July to 8 July 2020.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice they have received from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies on the ability of testing international arrivals for COVID-19 to provide a safe travel system.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government has taken scientific advice into account at each step of the development of COVID-19 border measures. The Government has recently introduced a suite of border measures to protect public health. These measures include introducing a pre-departure testing regime for international arrivals and the suspension of all travel corridors to England, meaning that all non-exempt international arrivals must self-isolate for 10 full days.
From 15 February, all travellers who in the 10 days prior to their arrival have been in a country from which travel to the United Kingdom is banned will be required to quarantine in Government managed facilities. All international arrivals will be required to take a mandatory COVID-19 test on day two and day eight of their quarantine period. The Test to Release scheme will remain available to international arrivals from countries that are not on the ‘red list’.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice they have received from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies about false positive results from COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction tests.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies published their paper Impact of false-positives and false-negatives in the UK’s COVID-19 RT-PCR testing programme on 3 June. A copy is attached. This paper indicated that the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain reaction assays used for the COVID-19 testing programme have been verified by Public Health England and show over 95% sensitivity and specificity. The current tests are very specific and the risk of false positives, where the test is reacting to other viruses, is extremely low. Like any diagnostic test there is a possibility of a false negative or false positive result, but this is very small. Independent, confirmatory testing of positive samples indicates a test specificity that exceeds 99.3%, a false positive rate of 1%. Additional guidance has been provided to laboratories to reduce the rate even further.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they adjust their estimates of the number of COVID-19 infections to reflect the number of false positive test results.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The information is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce rapid COVID-19 testing for all workplaces.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department is running a series of workplace testing pilots across the United Kingdom. Early detection of positive cases is the most effective way to prevent operational shutdown in key industries, performing vital public services. These pilots will enable information gathering which will help towards the objective of gradually increasing the number of sectors participating in routine workplace testing.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020, what evidence was used to inform the decision to close certain categories of businesses; and what plans they have to publish any such evidence.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We believe the new regulations strike the right balance to take urgent action to stem the spread of the virus while also allowing essential retail to stay open and allowing the hospitality sector to remain open for delivery and takeaway.
Throughout this crisis, the Government and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, have provided robust scientific evidence and advice to guide decisions regarding the measures taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Indoor settings carry higher environmental risks, due to the close proximity of people and a longer duration of exposure. This evidence continues to be published online.
On 2 December, restrictions will expire, and we intend to return to a tiered system on a local and regional basis according to the latest data and trends.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they plan to lift the restrictions put in place by the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020; and what restrictions they plan to put in place in England once those Regulations are no longer in force.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We believe the new regulations strike the right balance to take urgent action to stem the spread of the virus while also allowing essential retail to stay open and allowing the hospitality sector to remain open for delivery and takeaway.
Throughout this crisis, the Government and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, have provided robust scientific evidence and advice to guide decisions regarding the measures taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Indoor settings carry higher environmental risks, due to the close proximity of people and a longer duration of exposure. This evidence continues to be published online.
On 2 December, restrictions will expire, and we intend to return to a tiered system on a local and regional basis according to the latest data and trends.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the success rate of a single polymerase chain reaction test for COVID-19, in terms of a percentage, for people with COVID-19 who have previously received a false negative result.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government does not publish data in the format requested.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the percentage of COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction tests that have resulted in a false positive.
Answered by Lord Bethell
In June 2020 the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies published a briefing paper on the impact of false positives and false negatives in the United Kingdom’s COVID-19 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing programme. A copy of the briefing paper is attached.
The briefing paper states that the United Kingdom operational false positive rate is unknown, and an attempt has been made to estimate the likely false-positive rate of national COVID-19 testing programmes by examining data from published external quality assessments (EQAs) for RT-PCR assays for other ribonucleic acid viruses carried out between 2004-2019. Results of 43 EQAs were examined, giving a median false positive rate of 2.3%.
Asked by: Baroness McGregor-Smith (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the efficacy rate of a single COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction test for international travellers upon their arrival in circumstances where no pre-departure test has been conducted.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Scientific analysis conducted by Public Health England and approved by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies showed that a single test on the day of arrival would reduce the number of infectious international travellers who enter the community by only 7% compared to a no self-isolation, no test scenario. This is compared to an estimated 99% reduction in the number of infectious international travellers entering the community for a 14-day self-isolation approach.