Health News at Your Fingertips

While PHE said the technical issue did not affect people getting their test results, Test and Trace and PHE joint medical advisor Susan Hopkins, has said it resulted in a delay in cases being passed into the 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 total number of lab confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has now passed 500,000.

Boris Johnson said earlier on Sunday that there was “a failure in the counting system which has now been rectified”. He told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show it was a “computing issue” and all those who had a positive test had been notified.

Michael Brodie, the interim chief executive at Public Health England, said the “technical issue” was identified overnight on Friday 2 October in the data load process that transfers Covid-19 positive lab results into reporting dashboards.

“After rapid investigation, we have identified that 15,841 cases between 25 September and 2 October were not included in the reported daily Covid-19 cases. The majority of these cases occurred in most recent days. Every one of these cases received their Covid-19 test result as normal and all those who tested positive were advised to self-isolate. 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.”

Public Health England provided a breakdown of how many cases were not included in each day’s figures, which are as follows:
957 cases were not included on September 25, when the original figure given was 6,874
744 on September 26, when the original figure given was 6,042
757 on September 27, when the original figure given was 5,693
none on September 28, when the original figure given was 4,044
1,415 on September 29, when the original figure given was 7,143
3,049 on September 30, when the original figure given was 7,108
4,133 on October 1, when the original figure given was 6,914
4,786 on October 2, when the original figure given was 6,968

So we can see that, at its worst, it meant that nearly 5,000 cases were missing from daily totals

Test and Trace and Public Health England joint medical adviser, Susan Hopkins, said the issue had not prevented people receiving their test result or affected decision-making in local areas.

She said: “Our analysis now shows that this issue affected a total of 15,841 cases from the period between 25 September and 2 October, with the majority occurring in recent days. This means the total number of positive cases over this period was higher than previously reported.

“Of these, over 75% (11,968) relate to cases that should have been reported between 30 September and 2 October.

“This issue did not affect people receiving their Covid-19 test results and all people who tested positive have received their Covid-19 test result in the normal way. It also does not impact the basis on which decisions about local action were taken last week.”

There have been a staggering 22,961 additional lab-confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, according to government data.

A total of 502,978 cases have been confirmed.

A message on the government’s coronavirus dashboard says: “An issue was identified overnight on Friday 2 October in the automated process that transfers positive cases data to PHE. It has now been resolved.

“The cases by publish date for 3 and 4 October include 15,841 additional cases with specimen dates between 25 September and 2 October — they are therefore artificially high for England and the UK.”

This follows a record 12,872 new cases reported on Saturday – nearly double the previous record of 7,143 – which the government explained as being due to a “technical difficulty” that led to a backlog of unreported cases being piled onto Saturday’s tally.

A further 33 deaths have been registered, taking the toll to 42,350.

All bars in Paris will close from Tuesday after the capital was put on maximum alert level, Reuters reported.

It follows a surge in cases that saw France’s infection numbers hit 16,972 on Saturday – the highest daily number since the country began mass testing.

A new three-tier lockdown system is being planned for England, with leaked government documents paving the way for potential harsher restrictions including the closure of pubs and a ban on all social contact outside of household groups.

The draft traffic-light-style plan, seen by the Guardian, is designed to simplify the current patchwork of localised restrictions, which apply to about a quarter of the UK. It also reveals tougher measures that could be imposed by the government locally or nationally if Covid cases are not brought under control.

Called the “Covid-19 Proposed Social Distancing Framework” and dated 30 September, it has not yet been signed off by No 10 and measures could still be watered down.

Read more here:

In Ireland, the National Public Health Emergency Team has recommended the entire country transitions to the highest level of restrictions, Level 5.

The three party leaders in government are expected to have a meeting with the chief medical officer tomorrow to discuss the recommendation, RTE reported.

It follows a Sunday meeting by the group, which oversees the country’s coronavirus response, as concerns grows over Ireland’s rising number of infections.

Here is a graphic, courtesy of the Irish Times, showing the different restrictions each level entails.

Global coronavirus cases have passed 35 million, with the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker showing 35,008,447 infections recorded.

The milestone was topped while the number of deaths stood at over one million. 1,034,818 fatalities have been registered around the world.

Here are the countries that have reported the highest numbers of cases and deaths:

Cases

• US: 7,411,716
• India 6,549,373
• Brazil: 4,906,833
• Russia: 1,209,039
• Colombia: 848,147

Deaths

South Africa’s health minister said a further 1,573 coronavirus cases were confirmed on Sunday, bringing the total up to 681,289, according to the Cape Times.

An additional 38 Covid-19 related deaths were also registered, Zweli Mkhize said, taking the country’s toll to 16,976.