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A technical failure, which caused some 16,000 cases of coronavirus in the United Kingdom to go unreported in time, delayed efforts by the British government to trace the contacts of those who tested positive, press reports today.
The public health agency Public Health England (PHE) specified that, between September 25 and October 2, 15,841 cases of covid-19 were outside the updated official figures that the Ministry of Health reports daily.
This data was then added to Saturday’s numbers, 12,872 new positives, and Sunday’s numbers, 22,061.
PHE, which ensures that the computer problem has been resolved, said that all positives have already been informed of the situation, although that is not the case of other people who have been in contact with those infected.
Ideally, experts say, the contacts of people infected with the virus should be traced within 48 hours to prevent the disease from spreading.
This flaw also meant that the total number of daily cases reported in the graph that the British government published last week was less than the actual number of positive cases.
The BBC public broadcaster considers that the daily positive numbers reported at the end of last week are “actually closer to 11,000” than the 7,000 reported cases.
According to PHE CEO Michael Brodie, the “glitch” was identified Friday night during the process of transferring positives from laboratory tests to published charts.
“We fully understand the concern this may have caused and, as a result, robust new measures have been put in place.”, He said.
Analysts say this new setback in the computer system used by the Health Ministry is not helping to improve public confidence in the covid-19 testing system in England.
Labor Party Health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth called the incident “chaotic” and said “the citizens of the country will be understandably alarmed.”
With these new cases added to the official figures, there are now 502,978 infections in the UK since the pandemic began.
