Public Health Wales updates coronavirus data – “no missing results” and “no delays in people getting their results”

Public Health Wales has updated public coronavirus data after a systems upgrade was completed.

Last week they trailed the systems update, and said that public reporting would be lagging until that was completed.

Today that data has been added in, resulting in around 11,000 cases across Wales now being historically added to recent local authority data. There has been similar lagging data in the past with figures updating previous days information (one example here from earlier this year) however they have usually been in the single figure range.

We grabbed the raw data yesterday and the newly released raw information this lunchtime to show where the additional cases in this data update have been attributed. There is still the now usual note to the data, aside from the upgrade, that cases sampled in recent days will not be full reflected in the figures ‘so the most recent incidence is likely to be an underestimate’.

Dr Giri Shankar from Public Health Wales told Sky News earlier today: “I think it’s important to reinforce that there have been no missing results or there has been no delays in people getting their results. All those individuals tested have received their test result, as per usual.”

“This issue about reporting on the daily figures has been affected as a result of a planned maintenance of the all Wales Laboratory Information Management System. This is an all Wales NHS system not just a sole Public Health Wales system and it was a planned upgrade.”

“As a result of that upgrade there was a delay in some of the Lighthouse Lab results coming into the system. We made the communication and let the stakeholders know that this is happening over the weekend. As a result of that there will be some delays in the backlog results feeding through into the system.”

“All along everybody, including our colleagues, in Welsh Government policy officials, and through them to the ministers, they had been informed about this planned maintenance and the likely impact that it will have on the reporting, we have always caveated that those reports where we had missing or delayed results would be an underestimate.”

“The true rates of infection, as we know, is sadly going up in Wales.”

The raw data for Wrexham is below, with the ‘oldcase’ and ‘oldtest’ being yesterday’s figures, and the ‘newcase’ and ‘newtest’ being the figures released today. Overall an extra 307 new cases have been added to the previously public figure for Wrexham, spread over six days.

The new data means Wrexham is now calculated at 319 cases per 100k on the seven day rolling figure with a 16% positive proportion of tests.

Earlier today First Minister Mark Drakeford was challenged on the data by BBC Wales, he said: “There is no computer problem. This is planned and necessary upgrading. Nor have cases gone missing. They were known about all the time as you have been reporting this morning. Everybody who had a positive test was told about it, our Test Trace Protect system knew about it. As we said all along, as the computer system is upgraded we will be adding those tests into the data. So, the story is not about missing data or computer problems. The story is about the seriousness of the situation we face in Wales”

The BBC said, “We might have known there was a problem but we didn’t know that we were looking at 23,000 cases last week instead of 11,000?”

The First Minister said, “Well, our Test Trace Protect system knew that, the Welsh Government knew…

The BBC interrupted to point out “Well, you knew but we didn’t?”

The First Minister replied, “Well those people who had bothered to follow the story knew that the system wasn’t going to be able to report all the cases. You knew that would be put right this week when the computer upgrade was completed, what’s being reported today is exactly what we said would happen.”

The First Minister was asked if he was expecting the figures to be so high, he said, “Well, I knew the numbers are going to be higher because we’re hearing through the TTP numbers, and I knew they will be higher because we carried out a record number of tests last week. So, a couple of weeks ago we were running at about 75,000 tests every week, two weeks ago that rose to over 120,000 tests. So, if you are testing more people, you will, and this is good news, you will identify more positive cases, who can then self isolate and stop them spreading the disease to other people.”

Public Health Wales have said, “NHS Wales successfully completed a major upgrade of the Welsh Laboratory Information Management System (WLIMS) over the weekend. This essential work, which had to be completed before the end of this month and had been planned months in advance, required downtime for the WLIMS overnight on Friday 11th through to the evening of Saturday 12th December. NHS Wales Informatics Service has been working with the supplier and the service over the course of the weekend and this week to support the transition of this upgraded solution into normal operations as planned.”

“During this time, arrangements were put in place to ensure minimal disruption to the Test Trace Protect Programme, with citizens continuing to be notified of their results from the English Lighthouse Labs and citizens with positive results will have been contacted as appropriate by the Contact Tracing teams.”

“Further work was required to restart the flow of the Lighthouse Lab results into the laboratory system, which then makes the result available as part of the Digital & Health Care Record in Wales. This work completed on Tuesday 15th December and the backlog of results had flowed into the WLIMS by 8am 16th December.”

“Unfortunately during this time, this data was not available for statistical reporting. All data and reporting are now up to date.”

“This work has not affected individuals receiving their COVID-19 test results and the contract tracing process being commenced.”

Commenting on the 11,000 additional cases overall figure for Wales the Shadow Health Minister – Andrew RT Davies – said: “This is another staggering data cock-up during the Health Minister’s management of the Covid crisis, to add to the 13,000 shielding letters sent in error and the data breach in September that saw 18,000-odd positive test results put on a public PHW server.”

“PHW calls this latest mess ‘significant under-reporting’; I call that a significant under-statement that belies the true scale of the problem.”

Mr Davies added that medical professionals had contacted him to voice their concerns – which they had raised with their managers – as to whether the planned maintenance should have been conducted when it was. They concerns were reportedly dismissed by their managers. Mr Davies continued: “Welsh Labour and their failing health minister have clearly lost control of the virus in Wales. This loss of control can only be compounded by today’s news of yet another data mix up. And, bearing in mind the concerns highlighted by health professionals, an investigation into this fiasco should be launched.”

Plaid Cymru Shadow Minister for the Economy, Helen Mary Jones MS, said, “With positive cases in Wales rising to record levels it is crucial that the reporting of data is both timely and robust. The public need a complete and current picture of the situation to realise the gravity of what we are facing. We need urgent reassurance that the failings have been addressed.

“I fear that the Welsh Government is losing control of the situation. The latest data saga shows that the situation is far worse than expected and tighter restrictions must now be introduced earlier in areas that have reached the Tier 4 threshold – based on the basis of rationality to reflect local levels of Coronavirus cases.

“However, restrictions alone though are not the answer. Test, trace, support and isolate must all work together. People need to be encouraged to self-isolate where necessary with increased financial support and isolation accommodation, businesses forced to close need to be able to hibernate fully and the test and trace system needs to significantly increase the amount of close contacts it reaches with 24 hours.

“It is this lack of a clear strategy and messaging that is seeing the Government’s credibility waning and it’s struggling to take the public with it more and more each day.”