Coronavirus: Minister admits not knowing how many contacts have been missed after 15,000 positive cases underreported

Therese Coffey has admitted she does not know how many close contacts of coronavirus cases were not tracked as a result of a testing blunder which omitted more than 15,000 positive results in recent days.

The work and pensions secretary’s comments came after Public Health England revealed its official Covid dashboard had underreported thousands of cases due to a technical glitch.

Although those who tested positive for the virus were informed, the cabinet minister was also unable to say whether their contacts had now been tracked down by NHS Test and Trace following the discovery of the error.

Quizzed on the fault, Ms Coffey told BBC Breakfast: "I'm conscious that PHE (Public Health England) had this glitch but they identified it so it is being rectified so we can get those contacts potentially into the system and being contacted as is appropriate and decided by the test and trace regime.

"We can't change the recent history, PHE will make sure that this sort of error doesn't happen again but they did pick up this error and I think they've acted quickly to rectify it."

Asked if she knows how many potential close contacts have not been traced, she said: "I'm afraid I just don't have that information."

Asked if they have now been contacted, she said: "I know that people who had the initial results have all been contacted, I don't know the answer to that question."

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, also demanded Matt Hancock address the Commons on Monday, and said of the error: “This is shambolic and people across the country will be understandably alarmed.”

He added: “‘Technical problems’ means over 15,000 previously missing Covid cases added to the totals for recent days. Were these cases followed up by contact tracing teams? Are contacts self-isolating? How does this impact local restrictions? People will be alarmed.”