Glitch that led to 15,000-case spike in NHS Covid-19 case numbers ‘found and fixed,’ says UK govt

Authorities in England now claim that the technical failure which led to an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases appearing on the NHS systems has been fixed and likely will not be repeated.

“The glitch has been found and fixed and I'm sure that the changes are brought in straight away to make sure this sort of problem doesn't happen again,” Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said Monday morning following a surge in cases on Sunday, to a record 22,961.

"I'm sure that PHE (Public Health England) will not be allowing that issue to happen again.”

Authorities claimed a technical glitch delayed the transfer of some 15,841 test results onto the government's systems, including dashboards used by the National Health Service (NHS) contact-tracing system.

“We fully understand the concern this may cause and further robust measures have been put in place as a result,” said PHE's interim chief executive, Michael Brodie, adding that all people tested had been given their results in a timely manner and those who tested positive had been told to self-isolate. 

The incident marks another in a long list of missteps and failures by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government in tackling the coronavirus pandemic, despite promising a “world-beating” test-and-trace system which has yet to fully materialize or operate at full capacity.

Early on Monday afternoon, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed that an investigation has been launched to determine why the glitch in the test and trace database wasn't identified sooner.

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