AIBU to think you aren’t meant to test for 90 days after testing positive?

[deeedeee]

Help me out, I’m confused!

I tested positive in October and was told that for the next 90 days not to do LFTs or take a PCR as the risk of false positive negated the value of testing. So that you should only get a PCR within those 90dats if you have symptoms.

But I’m seeing and hearing of lots of people taking LFTs after testing positive to show that they are negative now. Posting pictures of negative LFTs to celebrate coming out of isolation after having had covid. Even the local priest was saying that they’d been doing LFT’s everyday this week (but they already had it in November)

Am I wrong on my understanding?

Or was guidance updated and I missed it?

Or isit really unclear???

See it doesn’t really make sense to say to people like me that had delta in October to stop testing for 90days as presumably I can get omicron? Surely there’s a lot of folk who had delta in the autumn going around spreading omicron as they are not testing? Or are they and I’ve misunderstood the advice.

Can anyone link to some definitive guidance? Should I be testing still or not?

I've had an email from a group ds attends to say he's been a close contact of a positive case but like you, ds was positive end of October so I was unsure what he had to do too. Following for advice

The 90day is for PCR only. LFTs are less likely to pick up a false positive after having covid. I had covid last week and I'm now testing negative on my LFT . I need to test so I can travel tomorrow

From NHS website:

You should not do another PCR test within 90 days of your positive result, unless you:

• have any new symptoms of COVID-19
• get a positive rapid lateral flow test result

I've been doing PCRs every 2 weeks for work. I had covid and was positive on PCR at day 15, but never since.

See I was told to stop both lat flow and PCR !

Says that here

www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/11/C0913-lateral-flow-antien-test-trust-faqs-v3-jan-2021.pdf

And lots of other places if you look it up.

Really bad idea, can you link to that?

www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing/test-results/positive-test-result/

@deeedeee

See I was told to stop both lat flow and PCR !

Says that here

www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/11/C0913-lateral-flow-antien-test-trust-faqs-v3-jan-2021.pdf

And lots of other places if you look it up.

That is dated January 2021, so quite old now - I would try to get something more up to date.

[quote Reallybadidea]www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing/test-results/positive-test-result/[/quote]
This page is much newer:

Page last reviewed: 24 December 2021
Next review due: 6 January 2022

Yes there’s new advice now but agree it’s confusing.

My DS got covid twice within 8 weeks. You are meant retest within 90 days if you have new symptoms.

Posting pictures of negative LFTs to celebrate coming out of isolation after having had covid.

This is because if you test negative on day 6 and day 7 you can come out of isolation early.

I had negative LFT's by day 6 when I had Covid, DH took a lot longer - almost 16 days.

I thought the guidance was that you can't have a PCR in 90 days.

This explains it quite well

The guidance about PCRs changed on 1st December because of omicron.

Before, some people could still test positive on PCR (and LFT to a lesser extent) for up to 90 days and a previous infection was almost certainly protective within that time frame. So the scientific advice was that a positive test taken within the 90days of infection was more likely than not to be from previous infection. That’s why governments advised against it, because it would have just been a waste of testing capacity.

Because of omicron, the probabilities have changed a bit. Previous infection, even within 90 days, doesn’t stop you getting omicron and with ridiculously high level of circulating omicron presumably any positive test is more likely to be omicron than not. So governments changed their advice.

There was also a change to the advice on LFTs for self isolation. So if you have covid, you can be released from self isolation on day 7 if you have 2 negative test 24 hours apart. One on day 6 and one on day 7. Is it possible that that’s what you’ve seen people posting to prove they are negative?

@deeedeee my DS tested positive on December 10th and test and trace told me over the phone he was exempt from all tests for 90 days.

I’m a secondary teacher and colleagues who have tested positive have also been told not to LFT for 90 days.

I said this on another thread because I was confused about the new rules and everyone said I was wrong, but I was definitely told he was exempt from testing less than a month ago!

Yes I was definately told I was exempt from all testing for 90 days when I tested positive in October .

If there’s new guidance then it hasn’t been communicated very effectively IMHO