News that Britain’s ‘world-beating’ Test and Trace system is being run on Excel has been met with shock and despair today.
The weekly rate of new Covid-19 cases soared in dozens of areas of England, following the addition of nearly 16,000 cases that went unreported by because of a technical error with the spreadsheet.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was unable to say on Monday morning how many contacts of positive coronavirus cases had been missed, but it is likely to be a significant amount.
The issue occurred when people who tested positive were not recorded once a master Excel spreadsheet reached its maximum size – 16,384 columns, aka “XFD”.
Public Health England (PHE) said the technical issue resulted in 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 being left out of the reported daily coronavirus cases.
Reaction has been less than complementary of the government. We’ve picked out some of the best below:
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