Asymptomatic testing centres

[UnbalancedMum]

I work in a primary school, we’ve been sent an email from our head teacher stating that there is now asymptomatic tests for keyworkers and their families, I also think anyone in my county can have them because of how high our cases were/are.

My apologies if there’s already a thread on this, can I have opinions on if people think this is a good or bad idea?

They aren't as reliable as the PCR test but it will catch some asymptomatic cases which is better than none. In Liverpool the asymptomatic testing picked up around 20% of the confirmed cases in the area last week according to the Liverpool echo.
I've been to be tested twice its easy, painless and quick to do, negative results back within the hour.

It’s obviously got to be a good idea, if you test a test with no symptoms and get a positive result, then you isolate so as to not pass it on to someone vulnerable.

It's a good idea for surveillance of big groups, as it will find both asymptomatic cases and presymptomatic ones, and get them into isolation when either they would not have been spotted at all or might not have energed for another couple of days. It reduces the number of contagious people and that is obviously good.

Even with a high false negative rate, it still improves safety because finding some is better than finding none.

@Mindymomo

It’s obviously got to be a good idea, if you test a test with no symptoms and get a positive result, then you isolate so as to not pass it on to someone vulnerable.

I agree and I’m all for it, I have a test booked for the weekend. I’ve read a lot of negativity towards the tests and how unreliable they are so I was interested in others opinions.