Why not test instead of quarantine?

[TheClitterati]

Why can't people returning to uk from France etc, chose to be tested for CV instead of quarantine for 14 days?

They could be tested on entry and again 3 days or so later.

Perhaps the reason is you don't test positive for cv in the incubation period? Does anyone know?

I don't think people are quoting the right figure when they say the false negative rate is 20%. My understanding is that it depends a) on how many individual swabs a "test" actually is. In the UK I believe it is normally made of two physical swabs. b) how many days after infection the tests are done.

If there are two swabs and each test has a 20% false negative rate then it looks like a 4% false negative overall.

The reality is the whole lot makes little sense, several governments have taken a bizarre approach.
Many will get it, some will die from it.
IMHO only those vulnerable should be semi isolated. The healthy just get on with day to day activities.

How many other European countries have put France/Spain/Holland etc on a quarantine list? and if they haven't why not?

Other countries use incoming testing, are we going to be behind this curve too? or is it just another "look what we are doing" stunt.

There may well be a vaccine in 6 to 12 months or right now if the Russian one works but will there be any travel industry left? and if there is, will any of us find it affordable.

The economic consequences of the collapse of the UK holiday industry will be huge.

@MRex

There's currently a lot more false positives than negatives. This is factually inaccurate. Studies show 1 in 1000 false positives (so 1 extra person per day has to isolate, who might anyway be poorly with something else nobody wants) and 200 in 1000 false negatives who don't isolate when they need to. That's why contact with someone who has a positive really result matters. If you have a credible scientific report with different figures, feel free to post it *@SodomyNonSapiens*.

BUT there aren't anything like 1000 people testing positive, it's only 20% of the actual cases that are false negatives.

1 in a thousand false positives - so as I said 10 in 10,000 false positives.

or, as there were over 122 k tests 122 false positives

today 951 positives out of 122600. Approx 122 are false positive so 829 true positives

On the basis of 20% false negatives that is 20% of the actual cases, not 20% of the total number of tests. 80% of true positives are picked up. So there are around 1,036, which equates to 207 cases missed

So, with today's specific figures you are right
207 missed positives and ONLY 122 false positives.

The issue is as the cases go down the false positives are more and more significant as they don't change.

Even if there were NO cases of Covid, 122 people out of 122600 (or 10 out of 10000) would still test positive.

[quote Alex50]@SpanishRio I wasn’t meaning If a child in her bubble tested positive, I meant with all the cold and flu bugs about I probably will be there weekly.[/quote]

Or, you might be lucky - if your DD's school has all the kids and teachers wearing masks etc., that will reduce the occurrence of colds/flu. In the Southern Hemisphere - just starting to emerge from winter - the cold and flu season has been nowhere as severe as usual. (In Australia, there have been zero recorded deaths from flu this year.)

My cousin went to Cyprus as her dad is unwell over there recently.

All people entering Cyprus had to have a negative covid test within 72 hours of flying to be allowed to board. The whole plane was randomly tested when they arrived.

The Cypriot government are testing 1000 incoming passengers daily. That’s on top of everyone entering Cyprus needing a clear covid test. They are also running a very effective track & trace system. They had very few cases & locked down hard.

If a small country can do that I don’t understand why we can’t.

In the Southern Hemisphere - just starting to emerge from winter - the cold and flu season has been nowhere as severe as usual

Due to much more SD and hygiene measures?

How many people will be able to isolate for 14 days every 5 min? My husband and I will only be paid SSP which is about £90 a week, we can’t afford to isolate more than twice a year, we can’t work from home, this isn’t going to work. I don’t mind if we have the virus but if we’re healthy and virus free it makes no sense to sit at home for 14 days.

@thecatsatonthewall

In the Southern Hemisphere - just starting to emerge from winter - the cold and flu season has been nowhere as severe as usual

Due to much more SD and hygiene measures?

I would suppose so, plus a high uptake of the flu vaccine in April-May.

@Alex50 this situation you are complaining about is exactly why alot of teachers are asking for better safety measures. Not so schools stay shut but so education and working parents can be disrupted as minimally as possible. As we as teachers are also parents with children in bubbles, we don't want to be at home on SSP either. Lots of threads shooting us down in flames I recall.

@Kitcat122 I agree with you, I really don’t envy teachers going back, it’s a total mess and then there’s the complete cock up of exam results. I feel sorry for teachers, I would be dreading going back in September. What if a child tests positive at school and you can’t get hold of the parent? Do you send the whole class home there and then?

I don't think schools will test. If a child has symptoms at school the parents are supposed to collect immediately. Oh and government guidelines allow us to wear a mask while we wait with the child 😂. The bubble will only be sent home if the child subsequently tests positive. So potentially you will get a call to immediately collect your child for 14 days off. I agree it's possibly going to be a nightmare. We just have to hope the government are right and kids don't transmit it 🤔.

I heard testing sets have been sent to schools?

@notevenat20

I don't think people are quoting the right figure when they say the false negative rate is 20%. My understanding is that it depends a) on how many individual swabs a "test" actually is. In the UK I believe it is normally made of two physical swabs. b) how many days after infection the tests are done.

If there are two swabs and each test has a 20% false negative rate then it looks like a 4% false negative overall.

Tests at centres and home tests are one swab (you swab throat and nose with the same swab). Hospital tests may well be different, but they are a minority of tests taken.

For all the people mocking OP about not knowing about ignificant false negatives, she's absolutely correct that the email you get with a negative test doesn't even hint at it: "you did not have the virus when the test was done" is the exact wording and sounds pretty definitive. Which is awful, in my opinion, due to how untrue it is.

@Alex50 I heard that too. But I can't see it. We are not allowed to put sunscreen on children. We are not allowed to remove a splitter. I find it hard to believe we are allowed to test for Covid. I maybe wrong.

My understanding is the testing sets will be sent to schools to provide to the parents when collecting a symptomatic child so that they can be tested immediately and get the results quicker, rather than having to order a test and wait another 24 hours to receive it.

You can be infectious yet asymptomatic. My husband got infected in a group on a trip and brought it home. My son and I were asymptomatic (lost sense of taste and smell afterwards) but my husband had a temperature and felt rough. An athlete in his group was seriously ill for over two months. We got it mid March and here where we live in France were in strict lockdown the very next day after my husband returned, which must have stopped many infections. If I had gone to the UK (where lockdown started a week later) and visited my parents when infectious I might have killed some of them. Testing and isolating/quarantining is critical for this reason. Those who do not do so or want to avoid the test for no good reason are in some cases infecting those who will go on to die or suffer long term health complications. We have known this is the case since March in the UK and all over Europe. It seems so critical to collect the evidence to manage the disease properly which can only be achieved if people follow the rules and participate in the research!

And I forgot to add; systematic, sequential testing of individuals is necessary due to false negatives.

I don’t mind having a test and isolating for 14 days, what I struggle with, is big bubbles having to isolate for 14 days even though they have had a negative test

@TheClitterati

Why can't people returning to uk from France etc, chose to be tested for CV instead of quarantine for 14 days?

They could be tested on entry and again 3 days or so later.

Perhaps the reason is you don't test positive for cv in the incubation period? Does anyone know?

Just listening to Matt Hancock on Radio 4 talking about govt plans to start corona virus testing at airports!

I knew it would come eventually 🙄

I think schools are more important than aviation, but the government closed schools in March and allowed arrivals into the UK from abroad free entry to this country until mid-June. They turned the country into a giant chicken-pox style coronavirus-transmission zone from Feb-June.
Other countries have proper testing procedures in place to prevent lengthy quarantines. Our 14-day quarantine is in the relative stone ages compared to other countries. We haven't progressed since the start of the outbreak.
Is that because we haven't purchased the fast reliable testing kits that give a swift accurate result? Even Eastern Europe (can't remember which, either Hungary or Czech Rep:) have testing of incoming people from abroad 1 day and 5 days after arrival, then if all negative you are out of quarantine.
It comes down to the type of tests used.
Schools should be the priority for rapid accurate tests. We can't have our children at home for 2 weeks at a time without any evidence that they have the virus. They will spend more time at home than school.

Sorry that was a totally unexpected smiley face. Nothing smiley about any of this. = intentional angry face.

Btw, I am very much NOT of the 'school is childcare' point of view, quite the opposite. I have an older child who won't have time to catch up on missed education before important exams.

A few testing kits are being sent to each school to give to families where a child is symptomatic and they don't think a test would otherwise be accessed.