Thread by @Dr_D_Robertson

Nearly 23,000 Covid-19 cases were reported today. This is due to a delay.

Analysis thread.

Public Health England have released a statement. It is here: gov.uk/government/new…

First, note that the Department of Health and Social care is the data controller for Pillar 2 tests. It passes these data to Public Health England, and DHSC are responsible for the data.

The statement says:
"we have identified that 15,841 cases between 25 September and 2 October were not included in the reported daily COVID-19 cases"

It continues
"Every one of these cases received their COVID-19 test result as normal and all those who tested positive who were advised to self-isolate."

This _sounds_ fine, but...

"NHS Test and Trace and PHE have worked to quickly resolve the issue *and transferred all outstanding cases immediately into the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing system* "

"All outstanding cases were immediately transferred to the contact tracing system by 1am on 3 October and a thorough public health risk assessment was undertaken to ensure outstanding cases were prioritised for contact tracing effectively."

The implications are that nearly 16,000 people were not contacted by NHS Test and Trace until this error was identified. Some of these cases go back to 25 September.

This is an absolute scandal. These individuals will not have had their contacts identified and those contacts may have become infectious and may have been spreading the virus.

It is also clear that the testing element of NHS Test and Trace is inadequate. Positivity in some areas of the country have exceeded 15%. The World Health Organization sets 5% as a threshold above which not enough testing is being performed.

https://twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson/status/1312821471618662401

The commercial NHS Test and Trace system has failed. Local authority Directors of Public Health supported by Public Health England are the experts in public health. They should be given control of the resources currently within NHS Test and Trace.

This is a map of the cases per 100,000 population reported in the last 7 days (which includes the 15,841 additional cases) Credit: @BavPay

This is a map of the cases per 100,000 population reported in the last 7 days for London (which includes the extra cases) Credit: @BavPay

Here is my interview with @SkyNews earlier today, prior to the release of the PHE statement

Here is my interview with @SkyNews today talking about the implications of the data delay



I will also be on @iaindale on @LBC at 7:10pm this evening.