According to available data, information on detected cases of coronavirus infection in England is stored in an Excel table. The source says that a few days ago the table reached its maximum size, which is why the data on 15,841 positive coronavirus tests, which were carried out between September 25 and October 2, was not uploaded to the government dashboard in a timely manner.

Public Health England (PHE) has not confirmed that the crash was due to an Excel error. However, it was noted that the incident is related to a “technical problem” that arose in the “process of uploading data” to the government dashboard used by officials to disseminate data on cases of coronavirus infection.

As a reminder, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets can contain 16,384 columns and 1,048,576 rows. Although the cause of the failure has not been confirmed, the source notes that it is most likely due to the limitations on the maximum size of the Excel table. The PHE noted that although some of the data was not entered into official statistics, all infected patients received timely advice on the need for self-isolation, as well as assistance if required.