Asked by: Lord Butler of Brockwell (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their scientific advice rules out the possibility that COVID-19 was present in the UK in December 2019. [T]
Answered by Lord Bethell
On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China.
On 12 January 2020, it was announced that a novel coronavirus had been identified in samples obtained from cases and that initial analysis of virus genetic sequences suggested that this was the cause of the outbreak. This virus is referred to as SARS-CoV-2, and the associated disease as COVID-19.
The first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were identified on 30 January 2020. Whilst it is unlikely that COVID-19 was present in the UK in December 2019, we are unable to rule out the possibility since in December 2019 the virus had not yet been identified. Public Health England developed a pan-coronavirus assay many years ago and were testing samples using this assay throughout January and did not detect any other cases.