covid-19

[gogobongopop]

Oh, ok, then I've misunderstood the role test and trace play. No worries.

Out of interest, have you got a source that confirms what you've said?

[RandBlade]

Oh, ok, then I've misunderstood the role test and trace play. No worries.

Out of interest, have you got a source that confirms what you've said?

Sky News 10pm bulletin went into great detail last night including showing a flow chart, it might be available On Demand. All the tests come from a variety of sources, Pillar 1 tests (NHS tests) are directly integrated into the system. The issue is Pillar 2 tests which come from a variety of sources from Lighthouse laboratories to Universities etc whose data is sent to PHE in a .CSV format. PHE then processes the data in a centralised system then sends out to Test and Trace which then goes into multiple locations.

The whole flow chart looked similar to a knockout competition flowchart like Wimbledown with PHE in the middle like the Final. This centralised location is where the glitch was, if the failing had been elsewhere it wouldn't have affected so many people.

Test and Trace is a bit of a misnomer which causes some confusion - they are responsible for Tracing more than Testing. Much of the positives at the moment for instance now come from eg Universities which are testing their pupils using their own laboratories and are not under the auspices of Test and Trace but are sending their data to PHE using the CSV files, with PHE then supposed to send the data to Test and Trace but PHE was losing the data.

[Flixy]

I don't think it's remarkable that an Excel spreadsheet has been used. Using Excel spreadsheets to input, transfer and read large volumes of data is common practice. Given the power of Excel, and people's familiarity with it, it can be both more effective and cheaper to use it as opposed to developing a bespoke interface.

There's nothing wrong in using it.

What -is- remarkable is that a bug like this has been found in the live environment. It demonstrates a lack of forethought and testing. PHE must take some blame for this, but I'd also hold the test and trace system to account as well for not ensuring adequate non functional testing was performed on the scale they expected.

That would be my guess anyway.

I'm also not shocked they use excel, as you say it's common, and people are familiar with it. But no software validation for a script loading csv files.. that is bad, and should have easily caught this.

[gogobongopop]

I'm also not shocked they use excel, as you say it's common, and people are familiar with it. But no software validation for a script loading csv files.. that is bad, and should have easily caught this.

Agreed!