Health and Social Care

Richard Drax Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Ministerial Corrections

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con) [V]]

My hon. Friend said at the start of his statement that the disease was still here and that we were not out of the woods yet. The fact is that variants of covid-19 will be with us for many years to come. If we are truly to live with this virus, freedom day must mean what it says; the alternative is utter confusion, with hundreds of thousands of people having to isolate after being pinged by the NHS app. Here in Dorset, the police are beginning to struggle, because of the numbers who have to isolate. Will my hon. Friend tell me that the emergency services to which I think he referred include the police—that if they are double jabbed, they do not have to isolate—before enforcement of law and order becomes a real difficulty here in Dorset, I believe down in Devon and perhaps in other parts of the country?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we take this step confidently but cautiously. I remind the House that this is probably the most infectious respiratory virus known to humankind, with aerosol transmission, so we need to ensure that we are careful as we head into step 4.

[Official Report, 19 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 693.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi).

An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax).

The correct response should have been: