Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to gather and use information from covid-19 testing on viral load; and if he will make a statement.
The Department does not gather information on viral load testing as it is not possible to accurately measure viral load when testing swabs. Semi-quantitative estimates of viral load are however used in quality assuring tests and in differentiation of early and convalescent COVID-19 infection as a part of the operation of NHS Test and Trace.