Thread by @_johnbye

An issue at Immensa's lab in Wolverhampton gave false negative test results to an estimated 43,000 people over a period of more than a month!

This will explain many of the recent issues with people getting positive lateral flow tests followed by false negative PCR results.

https://twitter.com/ShaunLintern/status/1448925795045552134

The private lab is one of many that the government paid to process PCR tests for them.

There have to be serious questions now about what oversight @UKHSA has over these labs, given the error is reported to have started in early September but was only identified this week! 😳

More here from the BBC. Although the problem mostly affected people in the South West, "some may also be in the south east of England and in Wales".

bbc.co.uk/news/health-54…

This tallies with my own observation last night that there was a similar (but less extreme) dip in positivity rates and case numbers in the rest of the country at the same time.

You can see this most clearly in .. Wales and the South East of England.

https://twitter.com/_johnbye/status/1448772054174650371?t=NxjIsAwxg9b1WIxMy_wvqA&s=19

Perhaps it's no surprise there are quality issues at the lab... 😱

This was the same lab, way back in January. I wonder how thorough the @DHSCgovuk investigation was, and why they didn't terminate the contract then?

h/t @dgurdasani1

thesun.co.uk/news/13900590/…

Boris Johnson yesterday claimed the error "doesn't affect the overall numbers" (it clearly does, plus 43,000 people were wrongly told they didn't have the virus and to go back to work / school!) and we're "just getting along in a state of equilibrium" (cases are steadily rising).