Today, 14 January, Parliament will debate whether frontline workers should receive support for long Covid, the still poorly-understood consequence of Covid-19 which leaves many unable to work.
MP Layla Moran will be calling on the government to recognise long Covid as an occupational disease with a compensation scheme for frontline workers in health and social care. She will say that “we have not recognised that the brave people who we clap for every Thursday are being left out in the cold for stepping up to the plate at this time of crisis. It is unacceptable, it is shocking and it needs addressing immediately.”
The debate this afternoon begins at 2.30pm.
On Tuesday, the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus heard from witnesses who described their experiences. One, Dr Nathalie MacDermott, told how “neurologists believe Covid has damaged her spinal cord” and that she can only walk some 200 metres without assistance.
Last month, the APPG published the biggest review to date of the UK’s response to coronavirus – urging the government to adopt a ‘Covid-Secure’ exit strategy. It has heard from 65 witnesses in over 200 hours of live evidence sessions streamed on social media, and received just under 3,000 separate evidence submissions, since last summer.
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