The UK Government's Excel Test and Trace Data Gaffe Explained

We examine the UK government's high-profile data gaffe.

During the global pandemic, the spread of coronavirus has been limited through a range of measures. On the 5th of October it was reported that almost 16,000 positive tests had been left out of the central database. The omission resulted in rates of infection being under-reported.

It turned out that Public Health England had been using Microsoft Excel with the outdated XLS file format, limited to about 65,000 rows of data. Any rows exceeding this limit were ignored.

The takeaways are two-fold. Firstly, choosing the right software and data formats, while being aware of their limitations, is absolutely crucial. Secondly, quality assurance should be a non-negotiable feature of recording, analysing or reporting your data.