Covid: Delay in reporting 'hundreds of Indian variant cases' to councils, Downing Street admits

Surge testing and vaccinating has been taking place in hotspot areas Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

There has been problems including a "short delay" across a number of local authorities for contact tracing Covid-19 cases, Downing Street has admitted.

However, Number 10 denied a delay in NHS Test and Trace in alerting local authorities in hotspot areas, including Lancashire, to positive cases helped contribute to the spread of the Indian variant.

It follows a report by the BBC that for three weeks in April and May, eight local authorities in England – including Blackburn with Darwen – did not have access to the full data on positive tests in their area, meaning more than 700 cases were not reported and traced locally.

The prime minister’s official spokesman told reporters: "In this specific instance, all positive cases were contacted and told to self-isolate for 10 days.

"As you know, there was a short delay when asking some of those positive cases to provide details of individuals they had contacted since contracting Covid."

Blackburn with Darwen has consistently recorded one of the highest rates of new Covid cases in the country following the variant's spread.

"This issue was across a small number of local authority areas and was quickly resolved," he added.

When asked whether the government accepted the failure contributed to the spread of the variant, the spokesman said: "The spread of the variant will be down to a number of factors.

"This was an issue that occurred across a small number of local authority areas, so I don’t think it is possible to draw that conclusion from this."

Surge testing and vaccinating has been taking place in Blackburn in Lancashire, along with a number of other impacted areas in the UK, after cases of the B1617.2 mutation increased.

Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire has the third highest rate in the UK, with 118.2 cases per 100,000 people for the seven days to May 11.

This is up from 64.1 one week earlier, and is the highest for the area since March 13.

The BBC said a report into the reporting glitch at one of the councils affected concluded that the rapid spread of Indian strain within its boundary was “exacerbated by the sporadic failure of the national Test and Trace system”.

(PA Graphics) Credit: PA Graphics

Labour said the suggestion local public health officials had been "left in the dark" over their case numbers "beggars belief".

But No 10 said the issue, with Blackburn reportedly having the highest number of missing cases, was "quickly resolved".

Labour shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: "This is deja vu and echoes the mistakes made last year with Boris Johnson’s 'whack-a-mole' approach.

"It beggars belief that yet again local health experts on ground have been left in the dark for two weeks when we know acting with speed is vital to containing an outbreak.

"Ministers need to explain what’s gone wrong and provide local health directors with all the resources they need to push infections down."

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