The govt message is to take lateral flow tests regularly, especially if socialising. Fine.
My workplace 'strongly advises' to test twice a week, and with Omicron, recommended every working day. I do a job where I visit people in their homes as well as having to be office based so of course it makes sense to be cautious. If and when I've had symptoms I've taken PCR tests, this is for the asymptomatic testing.
I haven't been able to get lateral flow tests since the start of December. Each time I visit local pharmacies (three in my home town, two large ones near work) there are signs up saying they're out of stock and awaiting a delivery date. I've tried intermittently on the gov website to get some delivered but it used to let me go through the order then gave an error message on the last page, now it just says there are none available. It's of course possible that there might have been some available in that time and I've missed the window, but as I work full time it can be difficult to try all the time.
I've been lucky that a few colleagues have given me spares, but I'm back in full time at the end of the week and I'm concerned about doing my job if it's still difficult to get tests. Obviously I don't want to be putting my colleagues or people I visit at risk. I've looked online and this seems to be an issue in a few places, but I'm a bit baffled why this isn't news. I've told my employer and at first they didn't believe me (they weren't being mean, they seemed to think if it was a problem it'd be more widely known). Am I just really unlucky or is there a problem?
Btw I'm not advocating that I should be prioritized due to work, but I am anxious because the people I visit don't really get an option to cancel. I think a lot would take it on trust that we're regularly testing, so it sits uncomfortably with me that I might need to go regularly without testing.