Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the research of Wanglong Gou and others entitled Gut microbiome may underlie the predisposition of healthy individuals to covid-19, published in April 2020.

An assessment has not been carried out on the implications of this research. All new research is important to help us understand the disease and therefore potential effective treatments. The paper will be shared with public health and clinical experts to consider the potential for treatment or prevention options from the study findings.