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

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.

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.Advertisement

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

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