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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to tell you how shambolic my experience has been trying to get a covid test...

200 replies

Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 21:43

I'm a teacher and have been back in work around 3 weeks. I've come down with a heavy cold and a cough. Been off since Wednesday
Timeline is as follows:
Tuesday night- Tried to get a test- none available
Wednesday - Got a test local to me- just 6 miles according to the booking. Went to the test site, the main and only road to it completely closed off with signs and cones not letting me past. Tried calling the 'help'line- hour on the phone and missed my appointment.
Thursday- Nearest test site 100 miles away but miraculously got a home test kit booked at 8am- horray
Friday- Home test kit showed at 5pm- after the last post of the day near me
Saturday- Got up early to register the test, take the test and get it to the post office. Registration kept coming up as an error online- lots of people reporting the same, the site is completely down and not working. I missed the last post of the day
Sunday- can't do home test as no post, and it would be null and void as over 4 days since symptoms started. Managed to get a test 40 miles away at 7.30pm

Now I wait for results which could be 48hours. I've already lost precious teaching time with my a-level students and although I've been teaching remotely it just isn't the same. I also have my toddler son at home with me as I obviously can't send him back to nursery- making teaching very difficult.
It's September FFS and these are the issues I and many others are having.

OP posts:
Finfintytint · 13/09/2020 21:47

Yup. Government is absolutely shite at the moment.

Doliv63 · 13/09/2020 21:47

Same issues here ...a complete shitshow!! When my daughter finally got a test the email gave the wrong postcode for the test centre!!

Splendidseptember · 13/09/2020 21:48

Can you tell papers!!

I thought testing was a pillar of getting us all back into school

JuneFromBethesda · 13/09/2020 21:49

It’s appalling, isn’t it? We’ve only been trying since yesterday to get a test for our 9-year-old, who has a mild cough. Between the two of us we must have tried a hundred times to get a test through the website, without success. My husband is a teacher and if we can’t get our daughter tested (and assuming she doesn’t test positive), he’ll have to self-isolate with the rest of us for two weeks. Not to mention both our children missing yet more school.

‘World-beating’, Mr Johnson? Only in its utter inadequacy.

RollingWithMyGnomie · 13/09/2020 21:50

OP I feel your pain - haven’t been able to book a test at all this weekend.

I truly have no idea wtf is going on; how can we keep schools open and the economy going if we do not test and trace? The cornerstone of handling a pandemic.

Hope you get your results soon

JuneFromBethesda · 13/09/2020 21:50

And of course parents (and teachers) up and down the land are going to be experiencing the same thing now that the schools are back. Not as if anyone could have foreseen this Hmm

chomalungma · 13/09/2020 21:50

But Boris said it was 'world beating' and criticises anyone who has an issue because it's the NHS Track and Trace so anyone who complains is actually criticising the NHS.

Is Boris lying?

Pumpkinnose · 13/09/2020 21:50

There’s apparently a backlog of 189,000 and we are sending our tests abroad to labs there.

It is an absolute shambles. It needs sorting, immediately

Original poster
Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 21:51

Honestly it's sad but my experience is really not unique- plenty of so-called 'essential' workers can't get tests. My friend who works for a blood-bank waited 4 days for tests results, rung up and they have no record of him. How on earth are we going to get through the next few months like this?
My students have been amazingly understanding but how many more coughs or colds will either my son, my partner or me pick up meaning we have to isolate more. Not to mention students in my class, colleagues etc.
The testing system is horrendous and broken.

OP posts:
chomalungma · 13/09/2020 21:53

This is what Johnson said:

I note that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not take back his criticism and his attack on NHS Test and Trace, and I regret that. I gave him the opportunity to withdraw his verdict that it was on the verge of collapse: it is not.

It is doing a heroic job and testing hundreds of thousands of people. Yes, we will do more, and the world we want to move to as fast as possible is a world in which everybody can take enabling tests at the beginning of the day and antigen tests to identify whether or not we have the virus., like a pregnancy test, within 15 minutes or so, so that we know whether we are able to live our lives as normally as possible.

That is the vision that the Health Secretary and others have been sketching out over the last few days and that is where we intend to get to.

In the meantime, NHS Test and Trace is doing a heroic job, and today I can tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that most people get an in-person test result within 24 hours, and the median journey is under 10 miles if someone has to take a journey to get one.

gothicsprout · 13/09/2020 21:55

After 36 hours of refreshing webpages, finally got offered a test slot at the local drive in centre (rather than a suggested ‘walk-in’ site over 10 miles away...) and then the sodding website kicked me back to the first ‘Get a test’ page before it confirmed. Absolutely useless.

YouJustDoYou · 13/09/2020 21:57

Im literally petrified of being told my kids need a test - I'm zero hours contract, if I don't work, I don't get paid. Im having nightmares about this, every night. Oldest has just come down with a sore throat, and I'm so, so worried. I have bills due in 2 weeks, I can't believe I'm beholden to a system that I have no choice over.

Original poster
Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 21:59

God Johnson is a joke (putting it mildly :) ) I spent every half an hour of Thursday trying to get a test. The website is so so glitchy and the amount of times I had to confirm I wasn't a robot....oh my god, I could have thrown my laptop.

OP posts:
shreddednips · 13/09/2020 22:00

I'm self employed and we had the same problem as toddler DS got a temperature and cold. In the end we paid money that we could ill afford for a private test or risk losing 2 weeks pay each. It's shocking, god knows how many more times this will happen over the winter 😢

Merename · 13/09/2020 22:00

Oh no what a nonsense. We had a shambolic experience a couple of weeks ago but not as bad as that!! Hope you get your results soon. My kids have both started with snotty noses again today and praying that we don’t need to go down this road again, we had to isolate for best part of a week 3 weeks ago for colds with coughs.

Original poster
Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 22:01

@YouJustDoYou I'm so sorry- I really hope you don't have to get a test soon. It's ludicrious. If it comes to it, write to your MP straight away- if they're a decent one they'll get on the case as soon as they can.

OP posts:
chomalungma · 13/09/2020 22:03

MPs need to hear this.

It's one thing Johnson lying and spinning his way on TV - but when backbench MPs get emails, it does make a difference.

Original poster
Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 22:06

@chomalungma Yep agreed. I've emailed my MP about my experiences. I just feel so sorry for my students who are already stressed about next years exams. I've tried to keep them calm and be rational but at the same time- they've all witness the exam fiasco this summer, they don't want that to be them.

OP posts:
Cuppaand2biscuits · 13/09/2020 22:07

It's crazy, my friend has been trying to get a test since Friday after school sent her son home with suspected Covid. Child was coughing but no temperature and has been right as rain all weekend but can't return to school without a negative. Meaning parents can't go back to school and siblings also at home missing school.

My colleague waited 4 and a half days for a test result this week.

user1494055864 · 13/09/2020 22:07

YABVU A heavy cold is not a coronavirus symptom. You are part if the problem of why people with actual symptoms cannot get a test Hmm

AIBU to tell you how shambolic my experience has been trying to get a covid test...
ellieboulou33 · 13/09/2020 22:08

Your lucky to actually be able to get an appointment, I've been trying since yesterday morning, no test sites available every bloody time!

It's for my 8yo who has a cold but then said her Nutella on toast didn't taste of anything 😬

Original poster
Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 22:08

Hi @user1494055864 or should I say Troll? Bore off- I have a cough with it, or can't you read? Go attempt to insult someone else :)

OP posts:
Matilda400 · 13/09/2020 22:09

YANBU
I'm a police officer and having the same problem, without COVID I would be in work no issues as symptoms just not bad enough, but been told I can't until I test/two weeks (whichever is soonest!)

Original poster
Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 22:11

@Cuppaand2biscuits 4 days...that's unacceptable! Bloody hell :(
@ellieboulou33 I lost my sense of taste and smell to for a few days. It's a huge issue that Covid and normal cold symptoms are similar. Also, some people experience the common cold but have quite horrible reactions.

OP posts:
Original poster
Shiningstar84 · 13/09/2020 22:13

@Matilda400 Honestly, it's a total farce. I'm reading of people booking tests miles away, turning up as they've even run out of the things! I mean- seriously?!
Let's face it, the government or whichever private company is running this system, didn't adequately prepare enough tests in preparation for schools and unis going back- in fact I bet it didn't even enter their tiny minds to increase testing capacity. Oh and the labs are also so overworked they are now sending results to Italy and Germany too- great!

OP posts: