Lateral Flow Tests

Tokmon

baza52 said:

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?

I've just explained above what use that figure is.

I'll try and give an example with numbers so you understand better.

Let's say 10k test positive with 100k test taken that day (so 10% positive) then the next day 5k test positive with 50k tests taken (so again 10% positive).
If you only look at the positive tests then it looks like positive test have gone down which is a good thing... but actually only half the amount of people have take a test and considering that LFT are taken mostly by people that have no symptoms in that example the number of people tested positive going down isn't because there is less cases but only because less people are testing. 

We need to know how many people are taking the test so we know if the number of positive tests is a good or bad number compared to previously. 



Your saying that only positive tests are important well that means if everyone stopped doing test there would be no positive tests so obvious that wouldn't be a good thing so the number of people taking tests is important. 



Also going further than that we need to know the proportion of people testing positive to know how well the vaccine is working.

sammyjammy

Most people doing an LFT test are not testing because they have symptoms either,  just for caution

Tokmon

sammyjammy said:

Most people doing an LFT test are not testing because they have symptoms either,  just for caution

Exactly which is why knowing how many people doing the test is so important. If a million people do the test and 30k test positive and didn't have symptoms they can then estimate what proportion of the population has covid with no symptoms.

But if people don't report negative results and the number of people in total who have done the test will be wrong. That means the percentage of people testing positive will be higher in their figures so covid will look worse than it is.

baza52

Tokmon said:

sammyjammy said:

Most people doing an LFT test are not testing because they have symptoms either,  just for caution

Exactly which is why knowing how many people doing the test is so important. If a million people do the test and 30k test positive and didn't have symptoms they can then estimate what proportion of the population has covid with no symptoms.

But if people don't report negative results and the number of people in total who have done the test will be wrong. That means the percentage of people testing positive will be higher in their figures so covid will look worse than it is.

but the figures would only be worth knowing if everybody tested all the time. 
I dont know anyone that does tests regularly unless required to for work.
If you are only seeing results from those that are vulnerable or have to test the results mean nothing 

Tokmon

baza52 said:

Tokmon said:

sammyjammy said:

Most people doing an LFT test are not testing because they have symptoms either,  just for caution

Exactly which is why knowing how many people doing the test is so important. If a million people do the test and 30k test positive and didn't have symptoms they can then estimate what proportion of the population has covid with no symptoms.

But if people don't report negative results and the number of people in total who have done the test will be wrong. That means the percentage of people testing positive will be higher in their figures so covid will look worse than it is.

but the figures would only be worth knowing if everybody tested all the time. 
I dont know anyone that does tests regularly unless required to for work.
If you are only seeing results from those that are vulnerable or have to test the results mean nothing 

The tests are a random sample of people each day so knowing the amount of people doing the test each day, the area they are from and their result gives a lot of data which they extrapolate to have an idea of how it's progressing.

The fact that different numbers of people and different types of people are doing them each day means they need to know when anyone does it and their result. That's why they also ask for NHS number and some other information to collect as much data as they can.

Plus imagine if the vaccine and other measures eventually works so well there were hardly any positive cases being reported. If nobody reported the negative results either they wouldn't know if their were far fewer people doing the tests or if the cases had actually gone done.
That's why it's so important to know how many people are doing the test no matter the result.

GlennTheBaker

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 ?

My employer sent me 2 boxes which I threw straight in the bin as I refuse to be part of this pantomime.

baza52

so UK population is roughly 68 million multiply that by 2 tests per week and you would have 136 million tests. Yet they are only getting roughly 1 million a week.
Most people are just fed up with it all now and im one of them.
My Daughter tested positive a few weeks ago and as a household we took tests but stayed negative. We didnt report them as negative nor would we bother again.

So less than 1% of the whole of the UK are following the rules, why do you think that is?

GlennTheBaker

The FDA advised weeks ago that the Innova rapid antigen tests are garbage and should be treated as such.

Incessant testing of healthy people is ridiculous.

Thrugelmir

Tokmon said:

baza52 said:

Tokmon said:

sammyjammy said:

Most people doing an LFT test are not testing because they have symptoms either,  just for caution

Exactly which is why knowing how many people doing the test is so important. If a million people do the test and 30k test positive and didn't have symptoms they can then estimate what proportion of the population has covid with no symptoms.

But if people don't report negative results and the number of people in total who have done the test will be wrong. That means the percentage of people testing positive will be higher in their figures so covid will look worse than it is.

but the figures would only be worth knowing if everybody tested all the time. 
I dont know anyone that does tests regularly unless required to for work.
If you are only seeing results from those that are vulnerable or have to test the results mean nothing 

Plus imagine if the vaccine and other measures eventually works so well there were hardly any positive cases being reported.

Too many in the population are unvaccinnated at the current time. Globally the fight hasn't even started against Covid yet. There's a long haul ahead. 

Sea_Shell

Not too mention how much additional plastic these test kits are dumping into the waste system.

At least there seem to be less discarded masks on the floor and in the hedgerow since they've been largely phased out.