Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the warning from the director-general of the World Health Organisation that the “worst” of the COVID-19 pandemic “is yet to come”, and what steps they are taking to follow the World Health Organisation’s advice to test, trace, isolate and quarantine those with COVID-19.

To prepare the National Health Service for winter, the Government is providing an additional £3 billion of funding. This includes funding to allow the NHS to maintain the Nightingale surge capacity and continue to use the extra hospital capacity available within the independent sector.

Effective local management of any outbreaks is the first line of protection against a second wave that might overwhelm the NHS. To support local authorities, we made £300 million available and they already have robust plans in place to respond to outbreaks.

We have also made significant strides in our Test and Trace service. We have established one of the world’s largest testing programmes, with capacity at around 350,000 tests every day and we have already traced around 250,000 people who may have unknowingly spread the virus.

NHS winter preparations include delivering a very significantly expanded seasonal flu vaccination programme for priority groups.