Nasal swab only for child

[Elephanttrunk]

My child was swabbed this morning having developed fever and cough yesterday.
Has anyone’s child tested positive from just swabbing nostrils?
The cynic in me is thinking it will be negative result regardless as the rest gives so many false positive even with a throat swab?

Yes, we got a conclusive result after only getting a nasal swab of ds3.

Sorry, that'll teach me for assuming the op from the thread title. His result came back negative

Tbh I’ve had the same thought, I don’t know if it’s possible for the viruses to not colonise your nose, especially if it’s not the route you initially caught it (and not through the mouth of eyes).

I don’t know the ins and outs scientifically though and have to trust the people in the white coats on this one. If it wasn’t reliable I imagine we’d be told that children just have to isolate if they were symptomatic,

That’s a good point @Cornettoninja I just hate the thought of him potentially spreading it if a negative result comes back and he goes back into school. All of us have only been at school/home so if he has got it it will be from school so will probably be spreading regardless...

There was a thread about this the other day, and a couple of people reported a positive result from just the nasal swab.

I've had concerns about this too. My DS has significant ASN and it's very difficult to swab him. Definitely can't do the throat and can barely get it into his nose, but somehow the tests we have done have come back as conclusive negative and not inconclusive. I did ring the helpline to query it and they said that a negative result is a negative result, and there must have been enough sample on it.

But the Government itself states that poor sampling is a common cause of false negative.

Not the same I know, but I felt that I had messed up my test as I couldn't manage more than one quick swipe at my tonsils, like literally I just tapped once on them rather than swishing it round for 15 secs like I was asked! I did swab my nostrils much more thoroughly in the hope that would make up for it.

I got a positive result, along with all of the 'text book' symptoms (so not a false positive).

Thank you for linking that thread @conkersarebonkers sounds like I’m not the only one with this concern.
@PrivateD00r thank you for sharing your experience, I hope you are ok and are recovering.