Lateral flow tests are a waste of time now

[RubiesandRose]

MIL is 89 in July, living in an assisted living home. DH visited her last weekend and within days they had both gone down with a horrible chesty cough and cold.

DH has soldiered on working whilst feeling rough, he's just started to feel better. MIL has been really poorly all week and had several negative lateral flow test administered by carers.

Today the home rang to say they were calling an ambulance for her as she had rapid breathing and felt clammy.

We are over an hour away and left immediately to go to her. The paramedics attended and said they thought she should go to A&E and we agreed to meet them there. They also administered a lateral flow test which was negative.

We met MIL in A&E, she was just n relatively good spirits but you can hear she isn't breathing properly and has a horrible cough. They gave her a PCR test and lo and behold she tested positive for Covid. She's staying in for the moment and they'll continue to monitor her.

But honestly what is the point of lateral flows when they appear to be so unreliable, it seems such a waste of time and money when there is 50/50 chance of an accurate test result.

I hope she gets better soon.

I guess it must be a difference in variants? But I remember before, you could test positive even before symptoms appeared. Now it seems to be: feeling rough, testing negative and not getting a positive test for a couple of days.

What I’d like to know is whether infectiousness has also changed - whether you’re still going to be at your most infectious in the early stages/before symptoms even if not triggering a positive LFT.

we were all told at the time during the lockdowns that LFTs were useless if you have an active infection, and that if you have any symptoms you need a PCR test. LFTs were solely for identifying and isolating symptomless cases among people who might have picked up be virus and might be infectious without any idea that they might be ill.

Yet suddenly once they wanted to wind down the publicly available PCR testing the narrative around LFTs was changed. Their efficacy didn't change, they have never been reliable if there are symptoms.

@CoozudBoyuPuak you are absolutely right I had forgotten that.

I've had Covid 3 times, absolutely negative LFTs with the first but positive PCR, both positive second time round and only an LFT done this time round.

I and four colleagues have had exactly the same symptoms over the last 2 weeks, loss of smell and taste, awful cough, headaches and fever. I and one colleague have had blazing positives, colleague 3 had a very faint positive and other colleague tested negative throughout.

I think the tests were created fir the first variant and don't really work now

Mil had similar . Lateral flows, especially if nasal only, may not have the sensitivity of a hospital test with swab taken from the throat. Hope mil recovers soon.

What is the alternative you’d like to see OP? A return to PCR tests? Because I don’t think that’s remotely proportionate or realistic (outside of situations in hospital for diagnostic purposes as you describe.)

Or you’re just looking for “permission” to stop doing them? Because I and everyone I know stopped using LFTs months ago - I last used one around this time last year. I have returned to an entirely pre-covid way of dealing with illness. You could just stop doing them if you don’t see the point.

@Darkchocolatekitkat, I was thinking more of the use of them in care homes settings to determine covid infections and that they really are a waste of time. So either don't test and treat the symptoms or PCR test for accuracy.

Dh and I have Covid for the first time. LFTs came up very positive indeed. (I was expecting it to be like a pregnancy test where it takes time to go positive but the line appeared straight away.)