Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]


Groups > ger.ct > #467726

Computer, IT und COVID-Tests

From "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org>
Newsgroups ger.ct
Subject Computer, IT und COVID-Tests
Date 2020-10-05 17:01 +0200
Organization solani.org
Message-ID <rlfcgv$3eh$1@solani.org> (permalink)

Show all headers | View raw


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/05/how-excel-may-have-caused-loss-of-16000-covid-tests-in-england

Ganz großes Kino.

Papier, Zettel und Fax machen Fehler.

Aber für richtig großes Chaos braucht man einfach Computer und Excel,
scheint mir.


"How Excel may have caused loss of 16,000 Covid tests in England

Public Health England data error blamed on limitations of Microsoft
spreadsheet"


A million-row limit on Microsoft’s Excel spreadsheet software may have
led to Public Health England misplacing nearly 16,000 Covid test
results, it is understood.

The data error, which led to 15,841 positive tests being left off the
official daily figures, means than 50,000 potentially infectious people
may have been missed by contact tracers and not told to self-isolate.

PHE was responsible for collating the test results from public and
private labs, and publishing the daily updates on case count and tests
performed.

But the rapid development of the testing programme has meant that much
of the work is still done manually, with individual labs sending PHE
spreadsheets containing their results. Although the system has improved
from the early days of the pandemic, when some of the work was performed
with phone calls, pens and paper, it is still far from automated.


Covid cases and deaths today: coronavirus UK map
Read more
In this case, the Guardian understands, one lab had sent its daily test
report to PHE in the form of a CSV file – the simplest possible database
format, just a list of values separated by commas. That report was then
loaded into Microsoft Excel, and the new tests at the bottom were added
to the main database.

But while CSV files can be any size, Microsoft Excel files can only be
1,048,576 rows long. When a CSV file longer than that is opened, the
bottom rows get cut off and are no longer displayed. That means that,
once the lab had performed more than a million tests, it was only a
matter of time before its reports failed to be read by PHE.

Microsoft’s spreadsheet software is one of the world’s most popular
business tools, but it is regularly implicated in errors which can be
costly, or even dangerous, because of the ease with which it can be used
in situations it was not designed for.

In 2013, an Excel error at JPMorgan masked the loss of almost $6bn
(£4.6bn), after a cell mistakenly divided by the sum of two interest
rates, rather than the average. The news led James Kwak, a professor of
law at the University of Connecticut, to warn that Excel is “incredibly
fragile”.

“There is no way to trace where your data comes from, there’s no audit
trail (so you can overtype numbers and not know it), and there’s no easy
way to test spreadsheets, for starters. The biggest problem is that
anyone can create Excel spreadsheets – badly. Because it’s so easy to
use, the creation of even important spreadsheets is not restricted to
people who understand programming and do it in a methodical,
well-documented way,” Kwak wrote.

Errors from the spreadsheet software have even changed the very
foundations of human genetics. The names of 27 genes have been changed
over the past year by the Human Gene Nomenclature Committee, after
Microsoft’s program continually misformatted them. The genes SEPT1 and
MARCH1, for instance, have been changed to SEPTIN1 and MARCHF1 after
they were repeatedly turned into dates, while symbols that were common
words have been altered so that grammar tools didn’t autocorrect them:
WARS is now WARS1, for instance.

Back to ger.ct | Previous | NextNext in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread


Thread

Computer, IT und COVID-Tests "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-05 17:01 +0200
  Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Goetz Schultz <ng.expire1220@goetz.co.uk> - 2020-10-05 16:17 +0100
    ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-05 17:23 +0200
      Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-05 17:34 +0200
        Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-05 17:48 +0200
        Re: ! Hermann Riemann <nospam.ng@hermann-riemann.de> - 2020-10-05 18:33 +0200
          Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-05 18:36 +0200
            Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-05 18:56 +0200
              Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-05 19:08 +0200
                Re: ! Lars Gebauer <lgebauer@live.de> - 2020-10-05 19:25 +0200
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-05 19:28 +0200
                Re: ! Lars Gebauer <lgebauer@live.de> - 2020-10-05 19:46 +0200
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-05 20:01 +0200
                Re: ! Lars Gebauer <lgebauer@live.de> - 2020-10-06 09:07 +0200
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-06 09:12 +0200
                Re: ! Lars Gebauer <lgebauer@live.de> - 2020-10-06 09:42 +0200
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-06 11:12 +0200
                Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-05 19:30 +0200
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-05 19:41 +0200
                Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-05 19:46 +0200
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-05 19:48 +0200
                Re: ! thomas.niering@arcor.de (Thomas Niering) - 2020-10-06 06:30 +0200
                Re: ! Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de> - 2020-10-06 07:40 +0200
                Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-06 08:00 +0200
                Re: ! Stefan+Usenet@Froehlich.Priv.at (Stefan Froehlich) - 2020-10-06 06:32 +0000
                Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-06 08:50 +0200
                Re: ! Stefan+Usenet@Froehlich.Priv.at (Stefan Froehlich) - 2020-10-06 07:01 +0000
                Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-06 09:04 +0200
                Re: ! Wolfgang  Εnzinger <we_usenet@nurfuerspam.de> - 2020-10-06 13:24 +0200
                Re: ! Dr. Joachim Neudert <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-06 11:27 +0000
                Re: ! Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de> - 2020-10-06 18:58 +0200
                Re: ! Hartmut Ott <hottm@arcor.de> - 2020-10-06 15:46 +0200
                Re: ! Matthias Hanft <mh@hanft.de> - 2020-10-07 09:35 +0200
                Re: ! "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-07 09:45 +0200
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-07 09:51 +0200
                Re: ! Wolfgang Kynast <wky@gmx.de> - 2020-10-07 11:20 +0200
                Re: ! Joerg Walther <usenet2@vocabsheets.de> - 2020-10-07 15:35 +0200
                Re: ! Lars Gebauer <lgebauer@live.de> - 2020-10-07 10:00 +0200
                Re: ! Dietz Proepper <dietz-usenet@rotfl.franken.de> - 2020-10-07 10:18 +0200
                Re: ! Matthias Hanft <mh@hanft.de> - 2020-10-07 15:20 +0200
                Re: ! Stefan+Usenet@Froehlich.Priv.at (Stefan Froehlich) - 2020-10-07 13:40 +0000
                Re: ! Stefan+Usenet@Froehlich.Priv.at (Stefan Froehlich) - 2020-10-08 06:12 +0000
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-08 14:16 +0200
                Re: Linux programmieren (was : !) Fidel-Sebastian Hunrichse-Lara <Fidel-Sebastian_Hunrichse-Lara@b.maus.de> - 2020-10-08 13:59 -0400
                Re: ! Gerrit Heitsch <gerrit@laosinh.s.bawue.de> - 2020-10-08 20:45 +0200
                Re: ! Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de> - 2020-10-09 07:42 +0200
                Re: ! "Peter Heitzer" <peter.heitzer@rz.uni-regensburg.de> - 2020-10-09 07:01 +0000
                Re: ! Dietz Proepper <dietz-usenet@rotfl.franken.de> - 2020-10-09 09:24 +0200
                Re: ! Matthias Hanft <mh@hanft.de> - 2020-10-09 10:01 +0200
                Re: ! Ulf.Kutzner@web.de - 2020-10-09 01:43 -0700
                Re: ! Dietz Proepper <dietz-usenet@rotfl.franken.de> - 2020-10-09 15:13 +0200
                Re: ! "Peter Heitzer" <peter.heitzer@rz.uni-regensburg.de> - 2020-10-09 08:22 +0000
                Re: ! "Peter Heitzer" <peter.heitzer@rz.uni-regensburg.de> - 2020-10-09 08:30 +0000
                Re: ! Dietz Proepper <dietz-usenet@rotfl.franken.de> - 2020-10-09 15:15 +0200
                Re: ! Dietz Proepper <dietz-usenet@rotfl.franken.de> - 2020-10-09 09:22 +0200
                Re: ! Stefan+Usenet@Froehlich.Priv.at (Stefan Froehlich) - 2020-10-09 07:50 +0000
                Re: ! Dietz Proepper <dietz-usenet@rotfl.franken.de> - 2020-10-09 15:18 +0200
                Re: ! Dietz Proepper <dietz-usenet@rotfl.franken.de> - 2020-10-08 08:55 +0200
                Re: ! Ulf.Kutzner@web.de - 2020-10-09 00:27 -0700
                Re: ! Lars Gebauer <lgebauer@live.de> - 2020-10-06 09:11 +0200
                Re: ! Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de> - 2020-10-06 19:02 +0200
                Re: ! Stefan+Usenet@Froehlich.Priv.at (Stefan Froehlich) - 2020-10-05 18:14 +0000
              Re: ! Ulrich Weise <ulrich.weise@t-online.de> - 2020-10-06 14:37 +0200
                Re: ! Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de> - 2020-10-06 19:04 +0200
  Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Ulf.Kutzner@web.de - 2020-10-05 08:20 -0700
    Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Lothar Frings <Lothar.Frings@gmx.de> - 2020-10-05 08:36 -0700
      Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Wolfgang  Εnzinger <we_usenet@nurfuerspam.de> - 2020-10-06 01:03 +0200
        Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Ulf.Kutzner@web.de - 2020-10-08 05:55 -0700
    Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Bernd Ullrich <ullrich_bernd@hotmail.com> - 2020-10-05 18:13 +0200
  Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Lothar Frings <Lothar.Frings@gmx.de> - 2020-10-07 01:00 -0700
    Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-07 10:02 +0200
      Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Lothar Frings <Lothar.Frings@gmx.de> - 2020-10-07 01:38 -0700
        Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Ulf.Kutzner@web.de - 2020-10-07 02:20 -0700
          Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Lothar Frings <Lothar.Frings@gmx.de> - 2020-10-07 02:50 -0700
            Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Ulf.Kutzner@web.de - 2020-10-07 03:07 -0700
              Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Stefan+Usenet@Froehlich.Priv.at (Stefan Froehlich) - 2020-10-07 11:55 +0000
      Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests Matthias Eißing <meissing@gmx.de> - 2020-10-07 12:00 +0200
        Re: Computer, IT und COVID-Tests "Dr. Joachim Neudert" <neudert@5sl.org> - 2020-10-07 12:15 +0200

csiph-web