Thread by @EdConwaySky

Blimey: 12.872 new #COVID19 cases announced in the UK.
V big number. Biggest single daily number by a long distance.
Explanation is they left some cases out of the past week’s numbers down to “technical” reasons. 🤔

I’m pretty flabbergasted. Eight days - EIGHT DAYS - of #COVID19 case numbers were being under-reported due to “a technical issue which has now been resolved”.
And even tho it’s “resolved” no clarity abt how much of the shortfall is left to be reported. Hundreds? Thousands?

Does this change our picture of the disease?
Perhaps, perhaps not.
If today's figs contain the bulk of underreported cases the trajectory remains pretty similar, tho a bit higher.
But we don't know because once again they've been abysmally vague abt the extent of this. Astounding

Does this news mean the scary @uksciencechief projection is suddenly likely?
Let's hope not.
And reassuringly the much more reliable @ONS infection survey suggests cases are NOT rising at anything like that rate. Let's hope that continues.
But still. Blimey.

This isn't the first example of dodgy data from the #COVID19 testing system. As @rowlsmanthorpe and I covered in depth a few months ago, in its earlier days the collection and data management practices around testing were pretty, ahem, chaotic. news.sky.com/story/coronavi…