The extraordinary meltdown is believed to have been caused by an Excel spreadsheet containing lab results reaching its maxium size, and failing to update.

Some 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 were not uploaded to the government dashboard.

As well as underestimating the scale of the outbreak in the UK, critically the details were not passed to contact tracers, meaning people exposed to the virus were not tracked down.

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey conceded this morning that more Britons ‘may well’ have been infected due to the blunder.