Tag: cases

DOYLESTOWN, PA — The Central Bucks School District will now begin adding new positive coronavirus cases to its website, Superintendent John Kopicki announced Monday.

The move comes as the district reports seven positive COVID-19 cases since Sept. 16, including six Central Bucks East students and one employee at Lenape Middle School.

“We are confident that this process will promote transparency within the wider school community while ensuring that affected individuals are provided with necessary information related to their personal health and well-being,” Kopicki wrote in a letter to families of Central Bucks students. “We will continue to enforce our mitigation procedures and monitor any new cases as outlined within our health and safety plan.”

Applying the criteria for close personal contacts as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, students, faculty or staff who came into close personal contact with a positive individual will be notified by the building principal and receive communication regarding when they may return to in-person instruction. Close personal contact is defined by the CDC as being within approximately 6 feet of an infected person for 15 or more minutes.

Anyone who came into close contact with an infected person may be hearing from a representative from the Bucks County Health Department as part of the contact tracing process.

Positive cases are being tracked on the district’s website here.

LONDON — An epic fail of a simple computer program “lost” nearly 16,000 coronavirus cases in England for more than a week, British public health officials said.

Everyone who tested positive was informed. But the cases were left out of the daily totals between Sept. 25 and Friday and ignored by contact tracers during that time. Given the average number of in-person contacts, that means as many as 50,000 people may have been exposed without being called about it.

By Monday morning, only half of the 16,000 who tested positive had gotten a contact tracing call. The other half “should be contacted as soon as possible,” said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who was excoriated in the House of Commons by lawmakers.

The accounting error – blamed on operators entering data in an Excel spreadsheet program – was another serious stumble for the British government, at a crucial moment, when it is daily trying to decide where to tighten regional restrictions to slow a second wave of the virus.

After the error was spotted and the lost cases accounted for, the government’s report of new daily infections nearly doubled – from 12,872 on Saturday to 22,961 on Sunday – sparking renewed angst among officials in London and England’s north, where most of the new cases were centered.

Michael Brodie, the interim head of Public Health England, said the issue was identified late

Britain reported a surge in daily COVID-19 cases to a record 22,961 on Sunday after authorities admitted a technical issue had meant that over 15,000 test results had not been transferred into computer systems on time, including for contact tracers. The technical problem, which was identified on Friday and has now been resolved, led to 15,841 cases not being uploaded into reporting dashboards used by the NHS contact-tracing system.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to give a statement in the Commons later today to explain the blunder amid reports the missing results exceeded the maximum file size.

Political commentator Andrew Neil described the new as a “government shambles”.

News of the glitch was likely to cast further doubt over the robustness of the national test-and-trace system, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson said would be “world-beating” but which has experienced a series of delays and setbacks.

In terms of tracing the contacts of the infected people, Public Health England (PHE) said the information had been transferred to the relevant systems over the weekend and contact tracers were now working urgently to catch up.

The authority said all the people concerned had been given their results in a timely fashion, and that those with positive results had been told to self-isolate.

PHE said: “NHS Test and Trace have made sure that there are more than enough contact tracers working, and are working with local Health Protection Teams to ensure they also have sufficient resources to be urgently able to contact all cases.

“We are also increasing the number of call attempts from 10 to 15 over 96 hours.”.

PHE’s interim chief executive, Michael Brodie, added: ”We fully understand the concern this may cause and further robust measures have been put in place as a result.”

Work and Pensions Secretary Thérèse Coffey

3 min read56 min

Public Health England said 15,841 positive tests carried out between 25 September and 2 October had been added to the UK’s daily case totals over the weekend after a computer glitch meant they were not recorded on time.

The blunder saw the UK’s positive case figures soar after the backlog was finally added to the official tally, with 12,872 cases recorded on Saturday and a further 22,961 on Sunday.

PHE insisted all those who had been tested during the period had recieved their results as normal, with those testing positive for the virus being asked to self-isolate.

But they conceded the delay meant the close contacts of those confirmed to have the virus were not contacted by the NHS test and trace system.

Michael Brodie, the interim head of Public Health England said the “technical issue” had been spotted on Friday evening, meaning contact tracers were not handed the details until 1am on Saturday morning.

It is believed the glitch was caused by data files recording positive test results exceeding the maximum file size allowed by the system.

“After rapid investigation, we have identified that 15,841 cases between 25 September and 2 October were not included in the reported daily Covid-19 cases. The majority of these cases occurred in the most recent days,” Mr Brodie said.

“Every one of these cases received their Covid-19 test result as normal and all those who tested positive were advised to self-isolate.

“NHS test and trace and PHE have worked to quickly