Covid, the failure of the United Kingdom. “Lost” 15,000 infections due to a problem with Excel

LONDON. The latest failure of the government of Boris johnson in managing the pandemic in the UK would have come thanks to “Excel”. Yes, the famous computer spreadsheet program, frequently used by many private citizens. Is it possible that an executive “at the forefront of the world”, as the prime minister often defines it, uses a very common program but for experts not able to manage a gigantic and complicated amount of data, in this case those related to “testing and follow-up “against the coronavirus? Well yes, according to the Daily mail, and it was another fool. So much so that yesterday the British Ministry of Health, waiting for more powerful media, said that next time it will upload the data not all together, but divided by two.

This technical impediment, apparently due to Excel, is much more serious than it seems. Because last week, due to this setback, the Ministry of Health lost more than 15 thousand positive cases to Covid19. Not only in the calculation of daily infections, but especially since all the “direct contacts” of these newly infected citizens, meanwhile, have not been contacted by the anti-coronavirus tracking task force. Result: it is very likely, without the “test & trace” filter of the health authorities, that the infection in those days would spread even more in the country, because it was not disturbed.

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Deepening

“What the hell is going on?” From Brexit to Covid, the UK seems unrecognizable

by ENRICO FRANCESCHINI

Unsurprisingly, the numbers over the weekend were shocking: 12,872 new Coronavirus cases on Saturday and even 22,961 on Sunday. In reality, these surveys were inflated precisely by those 15 thousand cases not counted in the previous week and which were then added to last weekend’s calculation. However, the situation did not seem reassuring, since the 15 thousand cases in arrears were withdrawn, on Saturday and Sunday there were still about 10 thousand new infections by Covid per day

Confirmation came today, Monday, with 12,594 new infections, this time with no additions from the previous week, and an “official” all-time record in the UK on a daily basis. A worrying figure, which could lead to further restrictions or, worse, a second lockdown, which nevertheless remains the last resort for Johnson, who does not want to lock the British economy again on the “eve” of Brexit on the 31st. from December.

However, at the very least, the Johnson government can be proud of the data from the new anti-Covid19 tracking application, very similar to the Italian “Immuni”, available to citizens only 10 days ago but extremely efficient, with one flaw: only works on mobile phones. not older than 2-3 years. However, it is very efficient, to register in a pub or restaurant you only need a photo of the QR code of the place and in less than two weeks, more than 15 million Britons have already downloaded it. An exceptional figure, when compared to the 7 million Italians who have downloaded Immuni four months after its launch.