Covid-19 Update - Statement

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:24 pm on 8 July 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Lord Bethell Lord Bethell The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care 1:24, 8 July 2021

My Lords, I did not quite say that I did not know how many people use the app; I said that we do not know who is using it. We keep an eye on it and, to date, its use has not dropped, but we are naturally concerned that trust in the app will deteriorate and that is why we are looking carefully at the advice that comes out of being pinged. Some 19 million people have the app. It is an enormously valuable resource, and one that we believe has made a big impact.

Predicting long Covid and infections is extremely difficult because we do not know what the infection rate is going to be. We are in a race against the virus. I hope that very soon the impact of the vaccine will bring R below one and the disease will start going down instead of up. But I cannot tell the noble Baroness, exactly when that date will be.