Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what updates they receive on the regional values of the reproduction index for the COVID-19 virus; and what plans they have to publish such values on a routine basis.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Transparency, including on the evidence informing the views of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), is vital in helping to maintain the public’s trust and grow our collective understanding of the disease, while also helping to explain how scientific advice to the Government is being formed. The Government is working to publish evidence documents and studies, which have formed the basis of SAGE’s discussions and advice to Ministers, regularly, and will publish more evidence in the coming weeks.
SAGE does not currently publish the R value on a regional level. SAGE publishes an updated estimate of the United Kingdom-wide R range on a weekly basis.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the effect of an increase in temperature on the (1) environmental endurance, and (2) transmission, of COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The relationship between meteorological factors and COVID-19 hotspots, transmission (passing from one person to another), and environmental endurance (survival of the virus in the environment) have not been clarified sufficiently in any country, or globally. Much of the information currently available on transmission and the occurrence of COVID-19 hotspots relies on understanding the differences in epidemiology between other known species of human coronaviruses and COVID-19.
Carefully designed studies take time to gather observations and currently results around how COVID-19 effects its interaction with environmental, population and societal aspects are not yet available. Therefore, the current Public Health England (PHE) infection control advice assumes that the transmission characteristics of COVID-19 are similar to those of the 2003 SARS-CoV outbreak.
PHE continues to review and consider evidence on the potential association between environmental factors, including temperature, and the health impacts of COVID-19, as it emerges.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the possibility of the UK population achieving herd immunity to COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 was first identified, the United Kingdom Government has set out to mitigate against the spread of the virus in the UK population through various measures, including promotion of hand and respiratory hygiene and social distancing. This has subsequently led to a reduction in R and new daily cases identified, helping to protect the National Health Service and save lives.
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. Whilst it is not and has never been UK policy to stride for herd immunity, the proportion of the UK population who have had COVID-19 and recovered will gradually increase over time unless disease activity ceases entirely. As we understand the science at this juncture, it appears that most individuals who recover from COVID-19 do develop antibodies.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to what extent they will be relying on machine learning and data held by large commercial organisations to prioritise people for testing or to determine limitations of movement in the next phase of the COVID-19 lockdown.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government continues to be guided by the best scientific and clinical advice to aid decision-making but is not using automatic intelligence or machine learning algorithms to prioritise the allocation of testing for COVID-19.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what data are collected at each stage of the process of treating cases of COVID-19 to inform the evaluation of the efficacy of such treatment (1) close to real time, and (2) in subsequent analysis.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Data is not collected centrally on the different types of treatment COVID-19 patients receive and the outcomes of such treatments.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what use they have made of the stochastic version of the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered model CovidSIM v1.1.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is advised on infectious disease modelling by a working group, the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M). SPI-M consists of several modelling groups, all of whom have developed their own models independently, and some have multiple models for different purposes, of which most have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. For those models that have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals, there is an intention to do so. Some models have complex methodologies while others are simpler, with each different approach able to provide useful insights for policy-making decisions. These independent models come from a range of United Kingdom institutions and universities and the advice from them are regarded, individually and collectively, as some of the best in the world, and the UK Government is making the most of the talented UK modelling community’s expertise through SPI-M’s consensus approach.
The stochastic version of the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered model CovidSIM v1.1 has not been used by SPI-M; it is a relatively simple simulation to support policy development in countries where there is less modelling capacity and capability.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase activities aimed at alleviating worry, in particular for people isolating alone, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We recognise the effect that social distancing and self-isolation may have on a person’s mental wellbeing. We have published official guidance on mental health and wellbeing online at GOV.UK and are promoting this through the Every Mind Matters online resource. Our guidance for households with possible or confirmed COVID-19 infection also includes tips on protecting mental wellbeing during isolation.
We are working with the National Health Service and Public Health England, service users, academics and the voluntary sector to gather evidence and assess the potential longer-term mental health impacts of COVID-19 and plan for how to support the public’s mental health and wellbeing throughout the ‘recovery’ phase.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 1 June (HL4699), in what format the information on the number of people reporting to accident and emergency departments with serious non-COVID-19 related conditions is held.
Answered by Lord Bethell
All systems relating to the attendance of patients at accident and emergency (A&E) commence at the point the patient is booked in. Administrative information is held in the Secondary Uses Service (SUS) and Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) datasets which includes details of any investigation, diagnosis made, and treatment carried out during the A&E attendance.
Information about the data collected during an attendance at A&E can be found in the NHS Data Model and Dictionary. Once this data is processed it is used to create the HES A&E dataset. Details of the fields and content of this asset can be found in the HES A&E data Dictionary.
The Monthly A&E Attendances and Emergency Admissions collection also collects the total number of attendances in the calendar month for all A&E types, including minor injury units and walk-in centres, and of these, the number discharged, admitted or transferred within four hours of arrival.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to ensure that semantic and geographical analysis of COVID-19 trials does not impact the (1) unity, and (2) informativeness, of the clinical research landscape.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), commissioned by the Department, conducts regular analyses of the COVID-19 and other clinical trials, including geographical analysis. This analysis enables NIHR to ensure patients and members of the public from all parts of England and in all relevant sites have access to research. In addition, it enables work to ensure a better matching of clinical trials with disease prevalence, which benefits both patients affected and researchers. The NIHR Clinical Research Network, using its 15 regional centres across the country, ensures that there is a balance between the different needs of localities based on local knowledge of disease burden and a coordinated response across England.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to reach the goal of 100,000 tests a day for COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government had set a demanding objective of conducting 100,000 tests per day by the end of April 2020. This objective was met, with 122,347 tests conducted on 30 April.