Excel error could lead to underreporting of COVID-19 cases in England

A day after the UK government announced its biggest ever number of new

cases of coronavirus in England have been revealed andthe reason for the sharp increase, media reports. According to several sources, the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing laboratory results has reached its maximum size, meaning that 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 were not uploaded to the COVID dashboard -19 UK government.

Public Health England (PHE)did not confirm that the Excel crash was to blame, but instead referred to a "technical issue" in the "data loading process" that allows officials to share positive test results online. Microsoft Excel spreadsheets can contain up to 16,384 new columns and 1,048,576 rows. While the exact nature of the problem is not known, restrictions are believed to be at fault.

In a statement from the Ministry of HealthThe UK said that despite the delay in reporting COVID-19 cases, each positive result was reported to those infected and they were instructed to self-isolate if necessary. All outstanding cases were reported to the UK contact tracing platform by 1am on October 3, but such a delay in reporting could set back the UK government's work on Test & Trace" for more than a week.

"Test & Trace is a test and trace method and strategy for containing COVID-19 outbreaks in the UK.

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