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Wish we knew more details. Maybe helpful for people that don’t know... Xls excel has a 64k row limit. Newer xlsx has 1mm row limit. Or maybe they were puttin

Wish we knew more details. Maybe helpful for people that don’t know... Xls excel has a 64k row limit. Newer xlsx has 1mm row limit. Or maybe they were putting people in by columns and hit the 16.3k column limit?

iso1631 6y ago
Or maybe it wasn't excel at all. One number the UK government doesn't release is how many people are tested. They have spent the summer championing "testing capacity", which we found out at the start of September was a lie. They release the number of tests done, and the number of people returning positive. They don't release the number of people done -- if you're tested twice, that counts as two on the number of tests, but one on the number of people.
- makomk 6y ago
  The trouble is, that entire narrative about the testing capacity being a lie because of secret leaked figures about the number of people tested was itself a massive lie. For context, the Government publishes a stat for the number of people tested for the first time ever each week (used to be daily, but that was dropped in part due to people misusing it). Certain publications and politicians - starting I think with the Times - pushed the narrative that this was the real number of people being tested, and that the reason it was so far below the stated capacity was because the real capacity was far lower than the Government claims: https://archive.is/n3Yku https://archive.is/n3Yku This was bullshit on multiple levels - there are several important uses of testing, like routine screening of NHS frontline staff and hospital patients being admitted and discharged, that result in people being retested who've been tested at some point previously, and those obviously use actual testing capacity on people who haven't been tested that day or week. (Testing two samples from the same person in short succession, on the other hand, is unusual and not general policy.) Not only that, the people tested number is from pillar 1 and 2 testing in England only for the week ending the 2nd of September, whereas the capacity figure seems to be for all pillars in the entire UK at around the 12th or 13th. It makes absolutely no sense to compare them. And the cherry on the top is that I'm pretty sure this number is from before the problems with test shortages and testing delays that they're implying it explains. The not-so-secret weekly report in question with the number of people tested for the first time is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trace-england-and-coronavirus-testing-uk-statistics-27-august-to-2-september-2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trac...
  - iso1631 6y ago
    We know capacity was a lie because people were unable to get tests despite the total number of tests being below claimed capacity.
- dang 6y ago
  (This comment was posted before we merged the threads from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24685911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24685911. The current article confirms that it was Excel.)

iso1631 6y ago

Or maybe it wasn't excel at all. One number the UK government doesn't release is how many people are tested. They have spent the summer championing "testing capacity", which we found out at the start of September was a lie. They release the number of tests done, and the number of people returning positive. They don't release the number of people done -- if you're tested twice, that counts as two on the number of tests, but one on the number of people.

makomk 6y ago
The trouble is, that entire narrative about the testing capacity being a lie because of secret leaked figures about the number of people tested was itself a massive lie. For context, the Government publishes a stat for the number of people tested for the first time ever each week (used to be daily, but that was dropped in part due to people misusing it). Certain publications and politicians - starting I think with the Times - pushed the narrative that this was the real number of people being tested, and that the reason it was so far below the stated capacity was because the real capacity was far lower than the Government claims: https://archive.is/n3Yku https://archive.is/n3Yku This was bullshit on multiple levels - there are several important uses of testing, like routine screening of NHS frontline staff and hospital patients being admitted and discharged, that result in people being retested who've been tested at some point previously, and those obviously use actual testing capacity on people who haven't been tested that day or week. (Testing two samples from the same person in short succession, on the other hand, is unusual and not general policy.) Not only that, the people tested number is from pillar 1 and 2 testing in England only for the week ending the 2nd of September, whereas the capacity figure seems to be for all pillars in the entire UK at around the 12th or 13th. It makes absolutely no sense to compare them. And the cherry on the top is that I'm pretty sure this number is from before the problems with test shortages and testing delays that they're implying it explains. The not-so-secret weekly report in question with the number of people tested for the first time is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trace-england-and-coronavirus-testing-uk-statistics-27-august-to-2-september-2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trac...
- iso1631 6y ago
  We know capacity was a lie because people were unable to get tests despite the total number of tests being below claimed capacity.
dang 6y ago
(This comment was posted before we merged the threads from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24685911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24685911. The current article confirms that it was Excel.)