Nearly 16,000 daily coronavirus cases went unreported in the UK due to a technical glitch, leading to delayed efforts to trace contacts of people who tested positive, Public Health England (PHE) said on Monday.
In a statement, PHE said that 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 were left out of the country’s single-day case figures, the BBC reported.
They were then added in to reach the October 3 figure of 12,872 new cases and the following day’s 22,961.
The glitch, which occurred on October 2 has since been resolved, also meant that the daily count reported on the government’s coronavirus dashboard over the past week was lower than the actual number.
In the statement, PHE’s interim chief executive Michael Brodie said the glitch was caused by some data files reporting positive test results exceeding the maximum file size.
He said they worked with NHS Test and Trace to “quickly resolve the issue and transferred all outstanding cases immediately into the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing system”.
“We fully understand the concern this may cause and further robust measures have been put in place as a result,” the BBC quoted Brodie as saying.
Slamming the development, Labour’s shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said it was “shambolic and people across the country will be understandably alarmed”.
Bridget Phillipson, shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury told the BBC on Monday morning that she wanted to know whether it had had “any impact on government decision making around local restrictions”.
As of Monday, there were 505,619 COVID-29 cases and 42,440 deaths reported in the UK.
