tens of thousands of people in england
may still be unaware that they've been
in close contact with someone who has
coveted
a technical issue in transferring
positive results from laboratories led
to almost 16 000
missing cases all those who tested
positive were informed
but their close contacts were not and
thousands still haven't been
many of the cases are in parts of
northern england already under local
lockdown
the health secretary matt hancock told
parliament the problems still haven't
been resolved
and the incident should never have
happened the shadow health secretary
jonathan ashworth said the missing
results were putting lives at risk
here's our health editor hugh pim
testing and tracing continues today
but there are yet more questions about
whether the whole system in england is
working properly
with thousands of cases not recorded so
contacts of those testing positive
were not followed up the health
secretary had to come to the commons to
explain what went wrong
this incident should never have happened
but the team have acted swiftly to
minimize its impact
and now it is critical that we work
together to put this right
and to make sure that it never happens
again labor highlighted the failure to
follow up contacts
thousands of people blissfully unaware
they've been exposed to covid
potentially spreading this deadly virus
at a time when hospital admissions are
increasing
and we're in the second wave this isn't
just a shambles
it's so much worse than that here's what
we were told at the time about the
number of daily reported cases
up until friday reaching around 7000 by
the end of the week
but now that the extra cases have been
added in here's what it looks like
now above 11 000. all the new data
relates to england
with striking increases in some regions
in the northwest of england for example
there were more than 8 000 extra cases
reported
an increase of 93 in the yorkshire and
humber region
it was more than 4 000 extra cases an
increase of 113
on what we were originally told civic
leaders affected by restrictions in the
northwest
say policy must be reconsidered somebody
should be checking this this is a
national government
implementing the system and making
decisions that are predicated on that
evidence
and the evidence now we find as being
faulty so how does the system work tests
of hospital staff and patients are
analyzed at nhs and public health
laboratories
these seem to be working well testing
for the public and most
care homes at drive-through centers or
with kits is partly done by private
companies
they then send the swabs to the big
lighthouse labs to analyze
tests these were set up by the
government and are run by private
companies and universities
they then pass on results to public
health england to be fed into the test
and trace system
for contacts to be followed up this is
where the i t
problems have occurred phe says the
issue has now been resolved
but wider challenges for people using
the testing network remain
a surge in demand caused delays last
month and these are still happening
jared was tested on friday and still
hasn't had a result
he and his flatmates who are key workers
are having to isolate and stay off work
things should be in place by now really
so it makes it difficult for people who
are trying to
to do the right thing so so i can
certainly understand the the frustration
and anxiety and stress that it produces
other people who may not be
as lucky to have people delivering food
and you know support them through a
challenging time really
the challenge for the government remains
bolstering confidence in a testing
system
which in recent weeks has fallen short
of where it should be
hugh pim bbc news let's talk to our
correspondent danny savage who is in
leeds and there's plenty of concern
about this error there
yes sophie there's anger and worry here
in the north of england tonight over the
consequences of all of this take leads
for example
there's an extra 2177 new cases which
have been added to the total
after this recount following that error
and the north of england if you like is
suffering a double whammy it already has
the highest infection rates
but it also had a significant proportion
of those under-reported cases
were in this part of the country so that
means in the areas with the highest
infections there were potentially
thousands of people getting on with
their daily lives
when they should have been at home
isolating because they were the close
contacts
of those cases which didn't have test
and trace
acted upon them and that potentially
helped spread the virus further
in areas which already have high numbers
of cases
um one other thought tonight as well
there's been sharp rises in cities such
as newcastle
leeds and sheffield all of those are
student
cities and just give some detail on that
manchester now has the highest total of
infections in the uk at the moment at
495 cases
per 100 000 people but the head of
public health in manchester
has looked specifically at the student
population in the city
and reckons that the infection rate
there is astonishing at 3 000
cases per 100 000 just in the student
population alone so i think
the the story going forward and the
events of the next few days we'll have
to watch closely
at what those figures are like in
student populations across the country
in areas with a high number of
infections sophie danny savage
ian lees thank you the welsh government
is considering imposing quarantine
restrictions on people who travel
into wales from corona virus hot spots
in the rest of the uk
the welsh health minister is looking at
the options after boris johnson said he
did not want to stop people living in
parts of england that are
under local lockdown going on holiday in
wales
after a sharp spike over the weekend in
new infections because of that computer
glitch the latest data shows the number
of new cases has fallen
to 12 594
that were recorded in the latest 24-hour
period those still significantly more
than were being recorded
last week it means the average number of
new cases reported per day last week is
now 10
937 and as new cases have climbed so
have daily hospital admissions with
408 people being admitted on average
each day
over the past week this number doesn't
include scotland
19 deaths were reported that's people
who died within 28 days of a positive
covid19 test
it means on average in the past week 53
deaths were announced
every day and it takes the total number
of deaths
so far across the uk to 42
369.
well let's talk to hugh pim who's with
me now and as far as this computer error
is concerned do we have any idea how
many people are going to be affected by
this
well sophie labour think it could be as
many as 50 000 people out there who
don't know they might have come into
contact with somebody
who tested positive now the government
says that the contact tracing process
started early on saturday morning with
extra resources
and actually quite a lot of these new
cases were towards the end of last week
so there may not have been too much of a
delay
the fact no one's quite sure about the
numbers is potentially concerning
a lot of questions are going to be asked
about this it error it seems that it was
an
old format which was used to put data
into temp plates to then be uploaded
into the
central system and the templates didn't
have the capacity to take on some of the
extra new cases
the fact that nobody seems to have
realized this for a week there were no
i.t alarm bells ringing i think is
another big
question mark over the whole thing so
where are we with kovid19 now well matt
hancock says his assessment and
health officials hasn't changed and the
decisions made on
restrictions wouldn't have been any
different in the light of this but
i think the fact that we now know that
cases were going up in the uk throughout
last week
and their higher today without any extra
added data suggests
this will be watched pretty closely in
the days ahead thank you