Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the research published in the Journal of Molecular Epidemiology and Evolutionary Genetics of Infectious Diseases, Infections, Genetics and Evolution, A survey of genetic variants in SARS-CoV-2 interacting domains of ACE2, TMPRSS2 and TLR3/7/8 across populations, published on 26 August.

The Government recognises the need to research how genomic variants may impact COVID-19 severity. Genomics England has partnered with the University of Edinburgh Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care study and Illumina to deliver an ambitious programme of whole genome sequencing (WGS) to determine genomic factors influencing the severity of response to COVID-19, who responds best to which treatments, and to inform the development of novel therapies and vaccines. The study aims to perform WGS of up to 20,000 patients severely affected by COVID-19 and a matched control group of up to 15,000 with an asymptomatic or mild response to COVID-19.