Covid-19

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I assure the noble Lord that the department is working extremely hard with the NHS to ensure an absolute minimum of disruption to other treatments. It was thanks only to the incredible work of staff that, even at the peak of demand earlier this year, hospitals were still able to look after two non-Covid patients for every Covid patient. A similar picture was seen in primary, community and mental health services. The most effective way to ensure that other treatments are not disrupted is to make sure we tackle this disease and try to make sure we do not have huge numbers of hospitalisations of patients with Covid. We are working towards that. We are also working on the principle that the most urgent treatments, including mental health support, should be brought back first. I assure the noble Lord that is a priority for the department.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, what matters most in this crisis is not the number of coronavirus infections but the deaths that occur. All deaths are tragic, but I regret to say that they are mostly among the elderly, the frail and those with comorbidities. Two weeks ago, the number of deaths was approximately 11 or 12 a day. In the last seven days it has just about doubled. The number fluctuates, but it appears to be going up. Still, it is only between 1% and 2% of the average daily death rate in this country. That is after three months of greater social mingling.

I regret to say that this policy is incoherent, illogical and, without a vaccine, unending. It is doing incalculable harm to livelihoods, lives, the economy, our country’s future and, worst of all, our children’s future. Will my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal take this message back to the Prime Minister at the next Cabinet? Whatever focus groups may say, the British public are fed up and will not support the restrictions announced in this Statement any more than I do.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My noble friend has been very clear in his views on the actions being taken and I respect them. He speaks for people who feel that way but, I am afraid, as the CMO and Chief Scientific Adviser set out earlier this week, we know that death rates are a lagging indicator. We have raised the alert level because we have seen that the doubling rate of cases could be between seven and 20 days, and that in the last fortnight daily hospital admissions have doubled. There is enough concern that we have felt it absolutely necessary to take this action early so that we can try to stop a devastating second spike. I completely accept and understand the points he makes about the economy—I touched on that in my answers earlier—but we strongly feel we need to take this action. I am very sorry—I think we all are—for the inconvenience it causes, but it is worth it to save lives.