To ask if you have a relative aged 65+ at Christmas you should ALL lateral flow test?

[Fmesanta]

Don't want to be the martyr as I know there are a range of views within the family but AIBU to expect all the adults coming to test before they do if we have guests over 65 years old?

Yanbu
Anyone who meets an older person indoors without doing a test is just a nitwit. A potentially very dangerous nitwit.

Never done one, and I wouldn't expect anyone who has no symptoms to either.

I've been doing them before any contact with people outside our household, this past week or so, even when that's been popping to the corner shop or letting the waitrose delivery in.

@Topbunny

Never done one, and I wouldn't expect anyone who has no symptoms to either.

Even if they have asymptomatic or too mild to be alarming covid hut don't know it yet?

[quote 100problems]@MolkosTeenageAngst as a single person with a dependent child and depression can I share this: the thing that's worse than worrying about Covid is having Covid and giving it to other people.[/quote]
I do understand that and I have tried with the LFD tests but they trigger my anxiety to the point where it then becomes too great for me to leave the house and I end up having to cancel my plans. It’s not really worries about covid that are the issue, I’m not too worried about covid as I’m triple jabbed, it’s the fact that the slight worry about covid then triggers all my other anxieties.

Taking the test starts inane worries such as ‘what if I have covid? How will I get food if I need to isolate?’ which I’m sure everyone gets a little but then this starts to escalate into worrying about having to tell my close contacts and them all turning against me, I have social anxiety so it then becomes thinking everyone hates me anyway and it then triggers my suicidal idealations and OCD and I start feeling something bad is going to happen and that everyone would prefer me not to be there and then feel like I have to cancel plans and can’t go out. I do isolate myself quite a lot and struggle to socialise and leave the house generally and throwing in another obstacle with the LFD tests beforehand feels too much.

I am triple jabbed as are all of my friends and nobody I socialise with is clinically vulnerable so I just don’t worry about doing LFDs or I wouldn’t ever see anybody. I have done them occasionally when I’ve had a symptom which didn’t warrant a PCR test such as a sore throat or a headache and do try to test at least weekly on a day where I don’t have plans to go out but there’s no way I am going to start attempting to take them every time I leave the house or I would never go anywhere. The guidance in England is to only take them if going somewhere high risk (Eg: crowded/ enclosed spaces) or if you will be around someone CEV, there is no guideline stating you need to take them any time you socialise.

YABU.

You do what suits you and yours and leave other people alone.

Why is it only "dear old granny"? What about grandad?

For info, my mother is 75, goes to pubs, meals out, gigs, and is bringing her new toy boy, 58, who she met online dating. She's more at risk of passing it to us. She would not take kindly to agesit and sexist remarks!

Bloody well said @middleager

My parents have never ever done one my dad had a PCR before an op and that was it
I'm CEV. I don't spend any time inside with them

@CautiousOptimist11

False negatives in asymptomatic cases are about 42%.

So roughly 50:50 chance if you test just as a screen, it will be an erroneous result. But having done the test, one is likely to feel more confident about mixing with vulnerable population (or others in general).
False sense of security, in my opinion.

I do agree with this, given the behaviour of people I know. They all assume that a LFT is totally accurate. Before they existed people who wanted to see vulnerable relatives didn’t mix for a week beforehand.

I’ll be doing a test as will guests as I have a crap immune system (I’m under 65…). I’d expect folks to do a test out of courtesy especially if they have been doing a lot of mixing.

I don't LFT without good reason. My lifestyle is low risk, I generally don't have high risk contacts with vulnerable people so there's no point in routinely wasting the plastics, costing the NHS and boosting the Chinese economy by wantonly testing for the sake of it.

I'm prepared to do one before seeing my octogenarian grandma and that's it. I've gone through the inconvience of 3x vaccines, their primary side effects and secondary ones when they screw my periods up. I'm not routinely gagging and sneezing on top of that to satisfy neurotic people that will never be appeased anyway.

Of course! Not just the adults!

The older children should certainly be doing it too, and I think it’s reasonable to test the primary school aged ones too. Can’t say about the tinies because I haven’t tried to test a child under school age.

It's common courtesy before meeting in a group I should think.

Rather annoyingly the inlaws have made their Christmas trips to a lot of people this week, a lot!! But will not be doing LFTs before we see them. "FIL is most at risk!! Hes the one who needs protection!"" ...despite visiting all and sundry, no mask or sanitiser!

But we will test, despite doing all we could to lower our risk- including shopping at gone 10pm to avoid as many people as possible

Been self isolating and the works. Then I call Granny and she announces casually she is at the hairdressers getting her roots done.

Great idea if you can get hold of some!

Our family aren’t testing, none of us care. All those entitled to the jab have had it. Time to stop competing over who can angst the most about Covid. One day they’ll start charging for all these plastic waste-inducing tests. Then we will see who is so obsessed with constant testing when it hurts your pocket.

PS my parents are mid-late 70s and would hate to be thought of as elderly or “grannies”. My dad plays in a band and climbs trees. Too many people on this board have serious health anxiety

Your house/your family, your rules. Either if the over-65s have that preference, or they don't but you have decided to make a more stringent rule which benefits them anyway. At their house, it's their rules but you are at liberty to test etc more thoroughly yourself if you want to. At a third party's house, it's the vulnerable person's preference that matters, but of course they might have to stay home if someone is being resistant to that. But your role to support the over-65s if they are not being listened to and being talked out of it by other relatives who don't understand or aren't bothered.

Can’t believe how many people think this is necessary
No…we won’t be testing before meeting people, it’s such a shame to normalise all of this testing constantly. I don’t want that for my kids or for myself. We are not visiting anyone elderly or vulnerable at Christmas though.
If my family and friends asked me to test I think I would rather just not go but luckily the people I care about are all on the same kind of page.
We’ve all had the opportunity to have the vaccine, this new variant is weaker, shoving swabs up your nose and throat every time you want to leave the house just seems ridiculous to me. That can’t be good for your health to be doing that constantly anyway.
Also don’t understand the attitude of posters shaming or feeling frustrated with their older relatives being out and about and not isolating - life is for living and if they are out living their best life with the time they have got left then good for them!

@100problems

Fuck Me you're right *@MiddleParking* so let's do the dates again (remember, I said I've had Covid? Makes you quite poorly)

So:

12th Dec negative PCR
13th Dev negative LFT x 2
14th Dec positive LFT
15th Dev positive PCR

Ok with that?

And LFT do work, only the pricks that don't like using them say otherwise.

Hope you don't get it. Believe me, it sucks and you really will want to be out of circulation, by which I mean (as I'm sure you realise because you can't be that much of a tool) away from other people.

I literally have it myself right now, as does my husband, and nearly everyone else I know, which is how I know that negative LFTs can’t be relied upon if the stakes are high for anyone in the group. Which is what my post said. I’d say your primary ailment is main character syndrome

I think it's just the right thing to do. For those who say they won't test because of the impact on mental health of someone in their group if they were not able to mix- surely it's better to have a better idea of the risk everyone is taking by mixing? If someone tests positive the rest of the group can choose to ignore it and take the risk (breaking the rules, but who would know). We know that there is a risk of a false negative but a chance of identifying someone who is positive is just that.

For context, DH and I have been testing before mixing with others. At the start of this week, DH tested positive with no symptoms at all so we cancelled dinner out with friends that night and took PCR tests. The whole family tested positive on PCR tests and now we all have symptoms. If DH had not done the test, this week we would have mixed indoors with several groups of friends including some frontline NHS workers and several people in their 70s. The chances are we would have passed covid on to at least some of those people which would have meant more families with Xmas plans ruined, NHS workers unable to work and possibly older friends becoming seriously ill.

@theelephantinthegroup This is precisely the reason why I would feel better if we all tested. I know the majority on here can see and understand that perspective.

Some of the less understanding are probably more representative of what I may be dealing with. I guess I can't force them to but a gentle nudge is all I can do to do my bit.

Lateral flows can be wrong. Believe me - I know.

@lioncitygirl

Lateral flows can be wrong. Believe me - I know.

Does that mean that no one should be using them at all, ever?

I honestly think people have gone mad.