UK Edition
More university cities are on the brink of local lockdown in the wake of a Test and Trace blunder, with huge rises occurring in areas that looked as though they were coping.
The weekly rate of new coronavirus cases has soared in dozens of areas of England after nearly 16,000 cases were accidentally missed off official figures following a spreadsheet error.
Nottingham, which was not on the Government's Covid "watch list", has seen weekly cases rise to 283.9 per 100,000, which last week would have made it as the worst area in the country when compared with the pre-adjusted figures.
Although the Department for Health has insisted the new figures do not impact the list or alter current restrictions, Nottingham residents have been warned to brace for lockdown.
The graphic below shows how dozens of newly-announced cases are, in fact, old:
Alex Norris, the Labour MP for Nottingham North and a shadow health minister said: "The Government's latest data blunder means it's hard to get a true read on coronavirus in Nottingham. However, it's clear that infection rates are increasing.
"When rates increase, so do restrictions. If we want to avoid a local lockdown, it's critical that we follow the guidance, the 'rule of six', and socially distance."
Sheffield has seen 1,363 new cases added to its numbers, meaning there are now 233 weekly infections per 100,000 residents. On Sunday, Sheffield University confirmed 474 students and five members of staff have tested positive, while the city's council has warned that further restrictions are "not out of the question"
Other student-heavy cities, such as Leeds, Exeter and Oxford have also seen big rises, and could soon see tougher local restrictions.
The UK's current coronavirus hotspots are shown in the graphic below:
Dr Duncan Robertson, a lecturer in management sciences and analytics at Loughborough University and fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, said the error was "an absolute scandal" and warned that many people could have spread Covid unknowingly.
Manchester now has the highest rate in England, with 2,740 cases recorded in the seven days to October 1 – the equivalent of 495.6 cases per 100,000 people, up from 223.2 in the previous week. Liverpool has the second highest rate, up from 287.1 to 456.4, with 2,273 new cases. Knowsley is in third place, at 452.1, with 682 new cases.
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, was unable to say on Monday morning how many contacts of positive coronavirus cases had been missed (see video below).
But The Telegraph calculated that nearly 50,000 people who should have been identified by NHS Test and Trace teams were allowed to move freely in the community for days.
On Sunday night, Public Health England (PHE) admitted that 15,841 cases were not added to official figures, or traced in good time, following the spreadsheet error.
Currently, for each person who tests positive, tracers find three others who have been in close contact, and who might be infected – amounting, in this case, to 47,523.
Research by Imperial College London has found that 20 per cent of people who have been in close contact with an infected person are also infected, meaning a further 9,500 people may have unknowingly had the virus.
Tracers are managing to get in touch with around 71 per cent of contacts, which suggests around 40,000 people who ordinarily would have been picked up quickly were missed at current levels of performance.
Experts said the error could have substantial knock-on effects because those who were not asked to self-isolate may have infected others (the graphic below shows the effect of the missing cases on local infection rates).
Rowland Kao, Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology and Data Science at the University of Edinburgh, said: "All those individuals with positive results that were not entered into the system have contacts who remained an infection risk to others over this period. So we can expect that they will have already contributed extra infections which we shall see over the coming week or so.
"While it appears they are now being contacted as a matter of priority, this additional strain on a system already stretched to its limit implies that further delays are likely to occur for other cases where contact tracing is needed. These knock-on effects may have a substantial influence on the generation of new cases over a period even longer than that."
Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: "For the test, track and trace system to have a real impact on reducing transmission of Covid-19, it is essential that test results are communicated rapidly.
"We now know that people with Covid-19 are most infectious at around the time that they develop symptoms, so any delay in following people up will potentially expose a large number of people."
PHE said every single person who was tested initially had received their test result as normal, with all those testing positive told to self-isolate. The number of call attempts to contacts of those affected is being increased from 10 to 15 over 96 hours.