Why are pcr still mandatory on day 2?

silvercar

Butts said:

emmajones1976 said:

What I would be interested to know is has there been any evidence, either documented or anecdotal from someone on this forum, of people being checked on at home in the gap between landing and getting their negative test, or was it all the usual bluster from the Government knowing fine rightly they had no resources to do so?

Three trips abroad in December no checks on any of them in the period between landing and getting the negative result.

What I am curious about is whether the testing company inform the NHS or anyone else if you test positive. The system does not seem to be joined up.

A positive result will lead to notification to T&T. There is also a high chance your result will be sequenced to check for variants.

When you say no checks were made between landing and getting your result, when your passport was scanned there would have been an automatic check to ensure that a plf was linked to your passport number. No one may have checked you are isolating between you leaving the airport and getting your results, but that is normally only a couple of days max and the service is probably currently overrun with making contact with known positives. 

silvercar

emmajones1976 said:

What I would be interested to know is has there been any evidence, either documented or anecdotal from someone on this forum, of people being checked on at home in the gap between landing and getting their negative test, or was it all the usual bluster from the Government knowing fine rightly they had no resources to do so?

I know of someone who caught covid within a few days of arriving back in the UK and they were questioned about their whereabouts since arriving and that they had taken their day 2 test. 

So it may be that resources are concentrating on those that are positive.

silvercar

javixeneize said:

With omicron being the dominant variant, what is the point of keep enforcing pcrs on day 2 instead of lft, and even worst, why isolation is still needed until you have the results?

it made sense one month ago to prevent the spread of the variant from external countries, but I don’t think it does anymore, unless somebody is making a huge profit with this…

are there any plans to move back to lft as a day 2 test?

I'd be happy with keeping the PCR, but dropping the isolation requirement. PCR really is better at picking up cases. 

javixeneize

Interesting answers. First of all, I will stick to the law, even if I disagree. At no point I will skip the pcr test or isolation if this is mandatory

as per the comments on travellers over hospitals, it simply doesn’t make sense al all, unless you take a pcr every day in the uk even if you don’t travel… what makes you think that the risk of being infected after travelling from Spain is higher than after watching a premier league match? 

Sandtree

The PCR test is required because its done at a lab so the results are more secure and accurate... PCR tests also allow sequencing to identify the variant, having just found one new game changing variant its not exactly surprising they want to find whats coming into the country.

Being overseas at the moment and prepping to come home its the lateral flow test thats more questionable, certainly here there are places offering a lat flow test for us$20 in 30 minutes or an instant, no test done, result for $30... so for $50 I can test positive and get an all clear certificate or just pay the extra $10 and not go through the nose swab process 

Looking on Tripadvisor there are Canadian's asking who's offering the same service for PCR tests but thankfully they seem rarer (but there are examples of people saying their hotel offered them an all clear rather than the 50% discount covid isolation rate)