LONDON (Reuters) – British health minister Matt Hancock said on Monday a technical problem that stopped some positive test results from entering the contact tracing system was an ongoing incident but it had not hurt government’s understanding of the coronavirus crisis.

“This is an ongoing incident,” Hancock said of the issue that was identified on Friday evening and resulted in 15,841 positive results not being included in the reporting of daily cases and not being transferred to the contact tracing system.

“The chief medical officer has analysed that our assessment of the disease and its impact has not substantially changed as a result of these data.”

(Reporting by William James and Elizabeth Piper, editing by Andy Bruce)

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