Lateral Flow Tests

TBagpuss

As others have said, I suspect that a lot of them are people using them but not reporting negative or void results.

I've been following government guidance to test twice a week - I have been reporting all results but on the most recent pack I have the tests work but the QR codes don't scan - I did log the first one I used but haven't reported all of them because it is a faff to type in the reference number by hand twice!

I've also had a few where I couldn't use all 7 tests - for instance I got one pack which only had 6 pods of buffer solution instead of 7, and I've had a couple where I had to bin them because I dropped / knocked over the tube - I took the view that there was no point reporting it as void where the issue was m clumsiness, not faulty test or an issue with my sampling technique. I would imagine that where people are testing children those issues are perhaps likely to be more common .

tooldle

Deleted_User said:

This sounds as if you regularly get infected - and decide whether or not to report it as a last minute decision!!
How many infections have you reported? 

Is your question for me? 
I’ve not been infected at all. My employer provides tests and encourages staff to use them. I’m clinically vulnerable.

kaMelo

Like others I, along with everyone I work with, have been testing twice weekly for the last four or five months. Only the positive results were reported which add up to far less than ten percent of total tests taken.

Back in April 2020 the Government were getting slated because our testing capacity was poor, now after increasing that capacity to over 1 million tests per day the Government are getting slated for "wasting money" 
For some people the Government, no matter what they do, is always in the wrong..

68ComebackSpecial

My daughter is at secondary school and they are still asking the children to test twice a week and report the results via the school website, but this does not include the code off the test and is not therefore counted in the Government testing stats. To be included the test would have to also be recorded on the .gov site - something I expect very few parents are doing for negative results.

elsien

Deleted_User said:

I have read that in the first 6 months of this year - over 700 million lateral flow tests were given out / posted to UK residents - yet only 70 million results were obtained

ie 10% or 90% were not completed / wasted

What does each test pack cost ? £10+ - what a ridiculous waste of money and resources (£6 billion +)

Can someone who has had a test pack and not used it - explain why ?

I have 4 test packs currently sitting on my shelf. I do regular tests for work so took the maximum amount the pharmacist would give me. They’ll get used over time but at the moment will be in your statistics as ones that are sitting idle. I do log my negative results as that’s the primary purpose, so care homes will let me in. 

ginger_chocolate

I only recently realised that you were supposed to report negative results as well as positive ones. But I have been using the tests I ordered. I'm not stockpiling!

Tokmon

lucinad said:

My daughters and I test 2 times weekly, I've only ever reported my positive result. The negative results I don't report....I know you are supposed to, but they are not being wasted we use them regularly as requested, and it flagged my positive result, which I reported and got a PCR test too.

I really can't believe how many people are not reporting negative results when it clearly says to in the book!.

It's really important to report all results so the figures are accurate but obviously people like you have made the whole positive vs negative results figures a waste of time.

Why are people so rubbish at following instructions!

baza52

Tokmon said:

I really can't believe how many people are not reporting negative results when it clearly says to in the book!.

It's really important to report all results so the figures are accurate but obviously people like you have made the whole positive vs negative results figures a waste of time.

Why are people so rubbish at following instructions!

so you would rather the figures said of 1 million tested x amount were positive. It does not change the numbers at all does it. the number x would still be the same and who cares how many people that tested dont have it?

Tokmon

baza52 said:

Tokmon said:

I really can't believe how many people are not reporting negative results when it clearly says to in the book!.

It's really important to report all results so the figures are accurate but obviously people like you have made the whole positive vs negative results figures a waste of time.

Why are people so rubbish at following instructions!

so you would rather the figures said of 1 million tested x amount were positive. It does not change the numbers at all does it. the number x would still be the same and who cares how many people that tested dont have it?

The https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ website shows the number of people testing positive and the number of tests taken because it does change the numbers.

Currently it says there are around a million people a day conducting tests with just under 27 thousand testing positive.

If tomorrow it says that only 10 thousand people tested positive then you might think "that's great cases are falling fast" but then if only 100 thousand people actually took tests it wouldn't be so great because it would mean it's only dropped as less people are taking tests and the actual proportion of people testing positive has gone up!.

That's why it's so important for all results to be reported no matter what they are so the proportion of people testing positive can be monitored which is the important number.


Using your logic if nobody did a test tomorrow and there were no positive results you would go out celebrating because covid was gone as "who cares how many people use the test"...

Unfortunately lots of people on this thread seem too silly to understand that which is quite frustrating as the response to covid is based on this data.

baza52

Tokmon said:

baza52 said:

Tokmon said:

I really can't believe how many people are not reporting negative results when it clearly says to in the book!.

It's really important to report all results so the figures are accurate but obviously people like you have made the whole positive vs negative results figures a waste of time.

Why are people so rubbish at following instructions!

so you would rather the figures said of 1 million tested x amount were positive. It does not change the numbers at all does it. the number x would still be the same and who cares how many people that tested dont have it?

The https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ website shows the number of people testing positive and the number of tests taken because it does change the numbers.

Currently it says there are around a million people a day conducting tests with just under 27 thousand testing positive.

If tomorrow it says that only 10 thousand people tested positive then you might think "that's great cases are falling fast" but then if only 100 thousand people actually took tests it wouldn't be so great because it would mean it's only dropped as less people are taking tests and the actual proportion of people testing positive has gone up!.

That's why it's so important for all results to be reported no matter what they are so the proportion of people testing positive can be monitored which is the important number.


Using your logic if nobody did a test tomorrow and there were no positive results you would go out celebrating because covid was gone as "who cares how many people use the test"...

Unfortunately lots of people on this thread seem too silly to understand that which is quite frustrating as the response to covid is based on this data.

if you say so.
the "tested positive" number wont change if people dont report a negative test tho. think about it. 
If 10,000,000 tests were done and all reported you would still have the same positive number.
What use is a figure that says of x amount tested only x percent were positive?