Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the proportion of positive covid-19 tests recorded in respect of patients tested 7-10 days after initial infection and who are no longer likely to be infectious.

Current United Kingdom guidance is that testing should be undertaken for people who have a new onset of symptoms, and official advice is to get a test as soon as possible after the onset of symptoms. Data related to the time that a swab test is undertaken relative to the time of infection or the time of symptom onset is not routinely collected. Further information on testing is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-getting-tested