Published: 16 December 2020
“We have now updated our daily dashboard to reflect the figures for the period spanning 0900 hours 14 December to 0859 hours on 15 December.
“Today’s figures only include a very small number of results from tests processed in the Lighthouse Laboratories and therefore represent a significant under-estimation of the true picture. We ask everyone who is using these figures to be fully mindful of this caveat.
“Today’s delay was related to the maintenance of the NHS Welsh Laboratory Information Management System (WLIMS). This took place on Friday and Saturday (11 - 12 December) so that essential service upgrades could take place.
“This means that we expect a backlog of results to come through over the coming days, and there will be a period of data reconciliation and validation that will affect our daily reporting figures for several days. Tomorrow’s figures and those over the following days will be higher as a result of the backlog coming through. Across Wales, tomorrow we will be reporting in the region of 11,000 new positive cases. Full breakdown by local regions are currently being analysed and will be available in tomorrow’s dashboard update.
“We stress this has not affected individuals receiving their results, and anyone who tests positive will be contacted by their local authority’s Test, Trace, Protect team in the usual way.
“Interim data was shared with stakeholders earlier today.
“The Public Health Wales public-facing data dashboard is a rapid reporting tool which is subject to correction and reconciliation. Official statistics are provided by the Office of National Statistics.”