--- title: "The UK Didn’t Realize How Bad COVID Had Gotten Because of an Excel Screwup" description: "The UK National Health Service's Test and Trace team didn't report over 15,000 COVID-19 cases due to an easily avoided Excel fumble." date: "2020-10-05" modified: "2020-10-05" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/uk-covid-excel-screw-up" categories: - "Developments" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "uk" --- # The UK Didn’t Realize How Bad COVID Had Gotten Because of an Excel Screwup ![The UK National Health Service's Test and Trace team didn't report over 15,000 COVID-19 cases due to an easily avoided Excel fumble.]() *\Image: Microsoft/Victor Tangermann\* UK health officials appear to have messed up big time. Rumors [spread on Monday morning]() that the UK National Health Service's Test and Trace team, an outsourced service created in May to track and help prevent COVID-19 in the country, bungled their reported figures due to an easily avoided Excel mishap. The story was later [confirmed by the *BBC*](). Team members used an old Microsoft Excel file format known as XLS to track tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases in the country. The XLS file format — which was created over 30 years ago and was superseded in 2007 — can only handle about 65,000 rows of data. Other formats are capable of well over a million. That means 15,841 confirmed COVID-19 cases were unaccounted for between September 25 and October 2, according to the *BBC*. That's about eight days of incomplete data. "Excel was always meant for people mucking around with a bunch of data for their small company to see what it looked like," Jon Crowcroft, University of Cambridge professor, told the *BBC*. "And then when you need to do something more serious, you build something bespoke that works — there's dozens of other things you could do," he added. "But you wouldn't use XLS. Nobody would start with that." It's not a good look, especially considering that the UK government [set aside almost $13 billion]() of taxpayer money for England's test and trace system in July. And the opposition in Parliament is fuming. "Thousands of people \[were\] blissfully unaware they've been exposed to COVID, potentially spreading this deadly virus at a time when hospital admissions are increasing," Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told the House of Commons. "This isn't just a shambles," he added. "It's so much worse." **READ MORE:** [Excel: Why using Microsoft's tool caused Covid-19 results to be lost]() \[*BBC News*\] **More on COVID:** *[Masks Still Aren't Required on White House Grounds, Official Says]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()