Dr. David Nabarro:

The second question is tough. This is a national policy issue. I want to again talk to the committee from my personal and professional perspective. I think it is very important there is best practice in nursing homes and that everything possible is done to ensure there is really strong infection control for the residents. This is necessary for the sake of relatives, it is necessary for the sake of the staff and I personally think it is the sign of a good society that we treat everybody, whether they are old or young, with the same respect when it comes to life.

I agree there is a need for universal application of best practice wherever possible. We must also recognise that good infection control in nursing homes is not easy, as I said earlier, because of some aspects of how they are.

There needs to be clear good practice. I do not necessarily think that this means taking people to hospital the moment they have Covid-19, but it means putting those people into proper facilities for isolation. If they are not isolated then everybody else gets Covid-19. We have so much evidence now that dormitory wards in nursing homes very quickly become places where just about everyone gets infected. As soon as somebody has Covid-19, and we need to test quite often, then he or she should certainly be isolated. Whether one takes the person to a hospital is a local decision.

The World Health Organization has come out with guidance on the quality of masks, and I have one here. They are filtering facepiece, FFP, masks and are quite different from the fabric masks. It is said that this quality of mask should be used by older people. There is a cost to these, and I agree that this must be taken into account. On the issue of face protections using fabric, ideally there should be some kind of statement on what they are to be made of, in terms of the numbers of layers of cloth or even better having some kind of Kitemark. I agree with Deputy O'Dowd on that also. I find myself agreeing with all the points raised by him.