Coronavirus: Minister admits not knowing how many contacts have been missed after 15,000 positive cases underreported

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Therese Coffey has admitted she does not know how many close contacts of individuals infected with coronavirus were not tracked as a result of testing blunder omitting thousands of positive results.

The cabinet minister’s comments came after Public Health England revealed its official Covid dashboard had underreported 15,841 cases between 25 September and 2 October due to a technical glitch.

While individuals who tested positive for the virus were informed, the work and pensions secretary was also unable to say whether their contacts had now been followed up by NHS Test and Trace after the discovery of the error.

Senior officials said the omitted cases were transferred to the tracking service “immediately” after the case figures were rectified over the weekend, but it means potential delays over more than a week in contacting thousands who could have been exposed to Covid-19.

Quizzed on the fault, Ms Coffey told BBC Breakfast: "I'm conscious that PHE (Public Health England) had this glitch but they identified it so it is being rectified so we can get those contacts potentially into the system and being contacted as is appropriate and decided by the test and trace regime.

"We can't change the recent history, PHE will make sure that this sort of error doesn't happen again but they did pick up this error and I think they've acted quickly to rectify it."

Asked if she knows how many potential close contacts have not been traced, she said: "I'm afraid I just don't have that information."

Asked if they have now been contacted, she said: "I know that people who had the initial results have all been contacted, I don't know the answer to that question."

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, also demanded Matt Hancock address the Commons on Monday, and said of the error: “This is shambolic and people across the country will be understandably alarmed.”

He added: “‘Technical problems’ means over 15,000 previously missing Covid cases added to the totals for recent days. Were these cases followed up by contact tracing teams? Are contacts self-isolating? How does this impact local restrictions? People will be alarmed.”

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

"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 and I would like to thank contact tracing and health protection colleagues for their additional efforts over the weekend," he said.

Test and Trace and Public Health England joint medical adviser Susan Hopkins said: "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."