Wuhan Coronavirus

Lord Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I reassure the House that there is an enormously energetic effort being put into testing kits. The testing arrangements to date have worked well. There is a 24 to 48-hour turnaround for testing. Work is being put into a dramatic increase in the number of tests necessary. Energetic work is being conducted by commercial organisations into smaller, portable testing kits—the size of this Dispatch Box—that could be put in wards to have an immediate turnaround for testing. This will greatly facilitate the management of this epidemic. I salute those involved in the 24/7 race to produce new technology and large numbers of these testing kits. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, I have warm words for Public Health England, which has done a fantastic job. I cannot remember the third thing that she asked.

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I beg the House’s indulgence because I know the convention is that a Back-Bencher should ask a quick question and sit down but in this case I cannot do that.

I have absolute confidence in our ability to try to contain this virus but, having said that, it will depend on how the virus behaves. As yet, we do not know its behaviour. Most of the cases hitherto reported are from areas where there have already been cases and are not new cases. A pandemic has not been declared yet but we may be at the knife edge. If it is declared, the advice will change, as will the way of screening people.

In this situation, containment is the first phase of stopping the virus spreading. It is like a fire, which can last only as long as there is kindling available. It will infect as many people as it possibly can. Possibly four out of five people in our country will be infected and maybe 2% will die. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is right. The Government need to provide clear guidance for those who are high risk. Hitherto, the deaths reported throughout the world have been of older, vulnerable immunocompromised people, not children or young, healthy adults.

I hope the Government have a strategy. I have absolute confidence in our advisers Professor Chris Whitty —the CMO—Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar and Professor Peter Piot, who I know are the world experts in containment of pandemics. However, the Government need to be more stringent in the advice they are giving to the general public on the value of things such as handwashing, using tissues and, importantly, self-isolating. When the numbers involved get bigger, that is when the risk is that people will not self-isolate and take that advice. The Government need to be more stringent about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord asks a perfectly fair question but I am not a qualified virologist. Certainly, I do not know the answer to that and I am not sure that even the virologists are certain about it at the moment, but it will be investigated.

[Lord Patel]

The reason I suggested that it came from bats is that there is an 85% genomic match in the sequencing of the viruses affecting humans and bats. On the other hand, the sequencing of the virus in pangolins is showing virtually a 100% match. However, it will not come to farm animals—they are not bothered by this virus—so chickens and sheep will not be affected.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

It is unusual to have that kind of interruption. Perhaps I may ask that Peers ask short questions to allow more Back-Benchers to intervene.