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Coronavirus: Nearly 16,000 new COVID-19 cases added to total after technical glitch

The announcement comes as a further 22,961 lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus are recorded in the UK.

A man speaks with restaurant staff on October 02, 2020 in Middlesbrough, England
Image: The total number of positive tests since the outbreak began is now more than 500,000
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There has been a delay in nearly 16,000 positive coronavirus results being added to the official figures, the government has announced.

It comes as a further 22,961 lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus were recorded in the UK, taking the total number to more than 500,000 since the outbreak began.

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Breakdown of missing cases

Missing cases Original figure Actual total
25 September 957 6,874 7,831
26 September 744 6,042 6,786
27 September 757 5,693 6,450
28 September 0 4,044 4,044
29 September 1,415 7,143 8,558
30 September 3,049 7,108 10,157
01 October 4,133 6,914 11,047
02 October 4,786 6,968 11,754

The government said that, due to a technical issue, there had been a delay in publishing 15,841 cases in England, meaning the total reported over the coming days will include some additional cases from between 25 September and 2 October.

Public Health England (PHE) said the people involved all received the test results and those who tested positive were advised to self-isolate.

"Today and yesterday's headline numbers are large due to the backlog of cases flowing through the total reporting process," PHE said in a statement.

And joint medical director Dr Susan Hopkins told Sky News: "There's no delay in people receiving their test results.

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"The delays are in reporting to the dashboard and to the public and there's been a delay in contact tracing initiation.

"Public Health England apologise that this occurred and have put in place steps to prevent this happening again."

The chart below shows that all of the missing cases from recent days have been added to the overall total in one go, hence the seemingly large spikes over the weekend.

Speaking earlier, the prime minister admitted there had been a "failure in the counting system" and that the issue was not ongoing.

"All the people who had a positive test have now been notified and I think the data that we have is realistic, and again it's very useful in helping us to identify you know where the incidence is and what we need to do to tackle it," he said in an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis said the revisions were evidence of the government and NHS Test and Trace being "transparent" about the testing numbers.

Why the missing 15,841 COVID-19 cases will affect everyone

Why the missing 15,841 COVID-19 cases will affect everyone

He told Sophy Ridge on Sunday: "As soon as they've spotted there was an issue, they've dug into that, they've got to the bottom of those numbers, they have been transparent and published the correct numbers and of course the teams will be looking through that to ensure it doesn't happen again."

However, Labour said the failure to record almost 16,000 positive COVID-19 cases was "shambolic".



Boris Johnson also warned the coronavirus pandemic "will be bumpy through to Christmas" and potentially beyond, and that it is "too early to say" whether local lockdowns are working.

