Home testing kits within days.

[NotExactlyHappyToHelp]

apple.news/AgxDFaDblQVmkOUpmI6C3ag

What do we all think? A hugely positive step is my first thought.

I hear Matt Hancock refusing to give a date, but saying they are buying some test kits.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-test-uk-kit-home-nhs-cases-symptoms-public-health-england-a9424741.html

So who said they'd be on the High Street in days?

It’s not true. Not true at all. They are working on faster kits for in-hospital use, but at-home kits are not going to be a thing and certainly not within days.

My husband works for a company that supplies such kits. This is grossly irresponsible reporting.

I'm convinced I had it because I normally NEVER get ill, yet I had a weird cold for 3 weeks with a dry cough. And at the beginning my lungs felt really weird, like itchy. If these really are going to be sold in Boots I will join the queue!

“Distributed to the community” means faster testing kits are going into HOSPITALS, to be used and interpreted by medical professionals.

From the Guardian coverage of today's press conference (contradicting its own headline):

Whitty played down the suggestions that millions of coronavirus antibody tests might be available next week. A Public Health England official suggested this at a committee hearing this morning. But Whitty said:
I do not think, and I want to be clear, that this is something that we’ll suddenly be ordering on the internet next week. We need to go through the evaluation, then the first critical uses, then spread it out from that point of view. We need to do that in a systematic way.

I think they’d be most useful if you test positive after having symptoms, so you can relax about getting it again (probably). Especially useful for those of us that have to keep working and facing the public.

/\ /\ /\ /

What @FiveFootTwoEyesOfBlue and @PoopyPanda said.

I also saw a guy /scientist interviewed a week or so ago.
He worked for the company that developed these and said that timing of the test was crucial.
If you test too early, the result will be negative as the body has not had enough time to make the antibodies.
The implications of folk (with Covid 19) wandering the streets thinking they are OK because they tested negative are too awful to contemplate.
A huge number of people can't grasp the simple instruction "stay at home" so I wouldn't be trusting the great unwashed to test themselves properly any time soon.😉

I’m hoping our employer might be able to buy a bunch of tests for our workers

I hope rapid tests are only available to health professionals to use in context.
As Wingedharpy wrote, a negative only means you're susceptible or haven't developed antibodies yet.
The earliest antibody response seems to be on average 5 days after symptoms appear.
But people with antibodies seem to be non-infectious. These will be people who can stop self isolating, and that would be great news for infected health professionals, as well as key workers.