Covid-19 testing errors and delays came at 'worst possible' time for Harrogate and North Yorkshire

Dr Lincoln Sargeant, the director of public health for North Yorkshire, said the IT failure - coupled with the national testing capacity issues - came at a time in the pandemic when contact tracing is "critical".

The error by Public Health England meant the scale of the outbreak had been widely underestimated, with nearly 16,000 positive cases between 25 September and 2 October going unreported across the UK.

Dr Sargeant told a briefing: "It is these things that work against the really good work that we do locally to keep infection under control.

"The challenge is not so much that we missed reporting the numbers - it is that there is a missed opportunity of contacting the people who were in contact with positive cases so that they could then be isolated.

"We probably missed a week where we could have more effectively isolated people who potentially were infected."

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Bosses at Public Health England said the error was caused by some data files reporting positive test results exceeding the maximum file size and added tracers were working urgently to track recent contacts.

After discovering the issue on Friday night, 67 cases were added to Harrogate’s total which now stands at 1,230 since the pandemic began.

It comes as Harrogate now has the second highest seven-day rolling average infection rate in North Yorkshire.

The district - which is seeing around 97 new cases per 100,000 people each week - comes only behind Craven (136 average cases) in the charts.

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Public Health England said all those who tested positive during the technical glitch had been informed.

In response to the error, Michael Brodie, interim chief executive of PHE, said the majority of the unreported cases had occurred in the “most recent days”.

Mr Brodie said they worked with NHS Test and Trace to “quickly resolve the issue and transferred all outstanding cases immediately into the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing system”.

“We fully understand the concern this may cause and further robust measures have been put in place as a result,” he said.

Meanwhile, North Yorkshire County Council has warned the region is at a "tipping point" in the pandemic and that government health chiefs will consider adding areas to the Covid-19 watchlist later this next week.

Richard Webb, the county's corporate director of health and adult services, told a briefing that a government announcement is expected on Friday.

He said the authority is expecting to see more districts in North Yorkshire join Selby and Scarborough on the watchlist as "areas of concern".

"We expect a further announcement about the government watchlist later this week," Mr Webb said. "I would expect areas may well be added and we will see those areas on the list continue."

He added: "The vast bulk of the 600,000 people who live in North Yorkshire have worked incredibly hard over the last few months and indeed in recent weeks to protect themselves, their loved ones and communities - and we give a heartfelt thank you for that.

"We now need to redouble our efforts because we are really on the brink of something more significant."

By Jacob Webster, Local Democracy Reporter