The Welsh shadow health minister has blasted the Labour Government for ‘another staggering cock-up’ after a computer maintenance glitch led to 11,000 coronavirus cases being missed from the nation’s official tally.
Conservative Andrew Davies laid into Welsh Labour and their ‘failing’ health minister today, accusing them of ‘clearly losing control of the virus in Wales’.
‘This loss of control can only be compounded by today’s news of yet another data mix up,’ he said. ‘And, bearing in mind the concerns highlighted by health professionals, an investigation into this fiasco should be launched.’
Public Health Wales (PHW) says the ‘very large backlog’ happened because an IT update last weekend shut down the ‘flow’ of positive cases identified by Lighthouse Laboratories into its official tally, which took days to switch back on.
The missed cases have masked the true scale of the nations’ coronavirus crisis.
Confusion was sparked in Wales yesterday after Labour First Minister Mark Drakeford broke from the UK-wide approach to the festive easing in restrictions to write into law that only two households rather than three would be allowed to mix.
He also announced Wales will be plunged into a third lockdown from December 28, with gyms and non-essential shops required to close alongside pubs and restaurants.
Wales currently has the highest infection rate in the UK – 425 per 100,000 people – and the First Minister said one in five people are testing positive.
This is not the first time PHW has botched its handling of the pandemic, after it mistakenly published the details of more than 18,000 people who had tested positive for the virus.
And in April it was revealed Welsh health bosses had sent out 13,000 shielding letters for those most vulnerable to the virus to the wrong addresses.
Public Health England has also bungled its handling of figures in October, after missing 16,000 cases from the UKs official tally due to an Excel spreadsheet blunder.
As many as 30,000 positive tests also had to be removed from the UK total in July, after PHE admitted it had ‘double-counted’ its figures.
Conservative Andrew Davies said this was yet another ‘staggering cock-up’ after it was revealed 11,000 coronavirus cases had been missed from the official tally. Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford yesterday sparked confusion by announcing Wales would not be following the UK-wide approach over the Christmas period
Holding the Welsh Government’s feet to the fire over its handling of the pandemic, Mr Davies slammed them for yet another ‘cock-up’ 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,’ he said.
PHW said they had been aware for days that maintenance to the NHS Welsh Laboratory Information Management System (WLIMS) had led to many positive cases being missed from their daily tally.
A spokesman told MailOnline they had informed the Welsh Government that their case figures from December 11 were ‘provisional’ due to the update.
A press release announcing the maintenance published on December 11 said: ‘There will be a period of reconciliation and validation that will affect our daily reporting figures for several days after this downtime.’
Wales will update its figures at midday to include the 11,000 cases that were previously missed.
Scrambling to explain the missed cases today, Mr Drakeford insisted they were ‘not’ due to a computer problem.
‘This was planned upgrading of the computer system,’ he told BBC Breakfast, ‘none of the data is missing, everybody who had a positive test in Wales was told that last week, everything was uploaded’.
‘But the figures do demonstrate just how serious the position here in Wales has become and underlines why we made the decisions yesterday, both in the lead-up to Christmas, during Christmas, and once Christmas is over.’
Plaid Cymru’s health spokesman Rhun ap lorwerth told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the blunder ‘raises questions about the way data is analysed’.
‘It raises questions again about the interaction between what is controlled in Wales and the Lighthouse laboratories, and it’s one of those things that again sort of rocks trust in what’s happening and the data that’s presented to us,’ he said.
‘I must say when the First Minister announced yesterday that from the 28th there would be a tightening of restrictions, and I could see the figures as they were, one wondered why not do things now in terms of stepping up support for areas most heavily affected, but this does put a new slant on it again.
He added: ‘This is a serious bulk of figures being added to the total today and it raises questions about the way data is analysed.’
Non-essential shops and gyms will close earlier – on the evening of Christmas Eve – while all restaurants, pubs and bars will shut from 6pm on Christmas Day. From December 28, tighter rules will restrict household mixing, travel and holiday accommodation
Calling a third lockdown yesterday, Mr Drakeford said a ‘sustained rise in coronavirus cases’ meant the draconian curbs on daily life were needed.
‘The situation we are facing is extremely serious,’ he said. ‘We must move to alert level four and tighten the restrictions to control the spread of coronavirus and save lives.’
Yesterday it was announced that 29 people had died from coronavirus in Wales, a seven per cent drop from last Wednesday when 31 people succumbed to the virus.
A further 530 cases were announced, although total case numbers are expected to rise significantly today when the country’s figures are updated.
Wales’ last lockdown, a 17-day firebreak, ended on November 8.
The latest figures for the country reveal an additional 2,100 people are in hospital with the virus, and a record 98 are in intensive care.
Matthew Jones, clinical director for emergency care at the Prince of Wales hospital, told ITV that ambulances were queuing outside with patients.
He said: ‘With the ambulances outside like this, there’s a strong argument that we are beyond crisis point – that this isn’t safe.’