Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2021 to Question 131167 on Coronavirus: Research, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of relaxing restrictions on the freedom of movement for those identified by the SIREN study as having antibodies to covid-19; and if he will make a statement.

Participants in COVID-19 related research who have received a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result within 90 days of a previous positive PCR test result and are asymptomatic, are exempt from the need to self-isolate.

SARS-CoV-2 Immunity and REinfection EvaluatioN (SIREN) participants are monitored by PCR every two weeks and by antibody tests every four weeks. The SIREN interim results suggest that those who had antibodies upon enrolment had a rate of becoming (re)infected that was 83% lower than that among those who had no antibodies upon enrolment.

Ongoing work by SIREN will clarify the duration of protection from both infection and COVID-19 carriage and vaccine efficacy.