Covid: investigation launched on coronavirus test error

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An investigation is underway after nearly 16,000 coronavirus cases went unreported in England, delaying contact tracing efforts.

Downing Street said there was a “technical problem” when the positive test results were transferred from the labs to the central panels.

Public Health England said 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 were left out of the UK daily case figures.

Those who tested positive were informed, but not their close contacts.

Experts advise that the ideal is to locate contacts within 48 hours.

The issue has been fixed, PHE said, and pending cases were relayed to trackers by 01:00 BST on Saturday.

The prime minister’s spokesman said the flaw was “quickly resolved” and that NHS Test and Trace and PHE were “urgently contacting” all cases, with additional contact trackers being used.

However, he said an investigation has been launched into why the issues were not fixed earlier.

The glitch meant that daily case totals reported to the government’s coronavirus dashboard over the past week have been lower than the actual number.

The BBC’s health editor, Hugh Pym, said daily figures for the end of the week were “actually closer to 11,000,” instead of the roughly 7,000 reported.

Labor described the failure as “chaotic.”

It was caused by some data files exceeding the maximum size and problems in data transfer between NHS Test and Trace and PHE.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to update Parliament on Covid-19 on Monday afternoon.

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the case data had been “truncated” and “lost,” but added that all the people who tested positive had been contacted and that the trackers “were now working through all the contacts “.

Senior public health officials in the North West of England told the BBC that a significant proportion of the unreported cases come from the area.

Cities like Liverpool and Manchester already have one of the highest infection rates in the country, around 10 times the national average.

The BBC’s analysis found that the number of cases reported during the week to October 1 increased by 92.6% in the North West after taking the missing tests, with similar increases reflected in England.

The increase, of 8,348 cases, is mainly due to missing tests, but the figures also include some results that were obtained after October 2.

At a time when the testing system has come under intense scrutiny after reports of delays and a system struggling to keep up with demand, the latest revelation could not have come at a more uncomfortable time for the government of Westminster.

Because the nearly 16,000 additional positive test results had not been entered into the testing and tracing system, their recent contacts were not immediately followed up.

Authorities say the technical problem has been resolved and that all new cases were added to the totals reported over the weekend.

But all this is unlikely to improve public confidence in the testing system in England.

And it muddies the waters for policy makers and officials trying to track the spread of the virus in what the prime minister has called a “critical moment.”

On Sunday, the government’s coronavirus control panel said that, as of 09:00 BST, there had been a further 22,961 laboratory-confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 502,978. .

Another 33 people were reported to have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Sunday.

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Public Health England Acting Chief Executive Officer Michael Brodie said a “technical issue” was identified overnight on Friday, October 2 in the process transferring positive Covid-19 lab results to reporting panels.

He said that most of the unreported cases had occurred in the “most recent days.”

“We fully understand the concern this may cause and more robust measures have been put in place as a result,” he said.

PHE said that NHS Test and Trace has ensured that there are enough contact trackers working and is working with local teams to make sure they also have sufficient resources to urgently contact all cases.

The number of call attempts increases from 10 to 15 in 96 hours.

There have been clear problems with the government’s test and trace data, but they don’t change our view of the UK’s trajectory.

Cases rose in early September, they may still be increasing, but not as fast as anticipated a few weeks ago.

This insight comes from three key data sets: the Office for National Statistics, Imperial College London’s React study, and the Covid symptom tracking app.

None are affected by current issues with test and trace data or people struggling to access a test.

The real aftermath of the weekend’s statistical chaos is not the numbers, but the people who should have been tracked by contact, who were told to quarantine themselves, and who may instead have been transmitting the virus without knowing it.

Labor’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “This is chaotic and people across the country will be understandably alarmed.”

He called Health Secretary Matt Hancock to explain “what the hell happened” and what he plans to do to fix the test and trace.

Bridget Phillipson, the Treasury’s shadow chief secretary, told BBC Breakfast that she wanted to know if it had had “any impact on government decision-making around local restrictions.”

PHE data shows that Manchester now has the highest infection rate in England, with 495.6 cases per 100,000 people in the week to October 1, up from 223.2 the week before.

Liverpool has the second highest rate, up 456.4 from 287.1 per 100,000. Knowsley in Merseyside, Newcastle, Nottingham, Leeds and Sheffield have also seen strong increases.

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