Is anyone planning on refusing to allow their children to have the lateral flow tests.

[Witchcraftandhokum]

I'm really not looking to start a bunfight. Just tying to better understand the reasons if you are not planning on allowing your child to be tested.

@Icequeen01

I've tried all the local waste management companies (including two we currently have contracts with) and they both said they are inundated and have no further capacity.

Single test at home can go into normal household waste.

@Icequeen01 For lots of waste the govt were supposed to mandate local councils to do this , most in our area have said no. So, we’ve advised schools to speak to their sanitary waste contractor to see if they can help, it’s a mess. Keep on at your LA and public health people that you have no solution...and also EHOs .

It’s your local council’s responsibility

Lateral flow tests are so unreliable tho

@Barkybarkynutnut

Lateral flow tests are so unreliable tho

Yep but even if they pick up a small percentage that is better than no testing will do.

Thanks @HazeyJaneII - I am really surprised by that. When I spoke to a couple of companies about the disposal of the tests we do at school (we are only a small SEN school so we won't be talking about thousands) I was told the LFD's had to be incinerated but that no-one had any capacity at the moment. Our used tests are bagged up in a locked cupboard until I can find someone to dispose of them!

Schools as public sector organisations have different requirements around waste management to individuals in their own homes. So the home test kits go in normal household rubbish, but in school tests have to be dealt with as healthcare waste. Its like sanitary towels - at home you just stick them in the bin, but in a school they go in a sanitary waste disposal bin and have specialist contractors to deal with them.

Strange to say keep kids at home if ur scared to catch Covid, keep them home if u don’t agree with the testing and other measures to reduce cases. It’s putting others at risk including teachers who have to go to work.

DC1 is disappointed so many classmates are saying they won't be tested and that they seem to have no understanding of/interest in keeping the school community as safe as possible.

Unfortunately for your dc1, the government isn't trying to keep schools as safe as possible. Many experts fear these tests will make schools less safe because if there are 20 positive cases, these tests will find 10 at best, leaving the other 10 in school believing they are 'negative' and behaving accordingly.

Some of the posts on this thread are unbelievable. Now I understand why we have 122k Covid deaths in the U.K. I couldn’t work out how it kept spreading around, but reading the selfishness and misinformation on here, now I get it.

I really hope that the children are more sensible than their parents and agree to the tests, otherwise schools will be closed again in a month or two.

@PracticingPerson
Unfortunately for your dc1, the government isn't trying to keep schools as safe as possible. Many experts fear these tests will make schools less safe because if there are 20 positive cases, these tests will find 10 at best, leaving the other 10 in school believing they are 'negative' and behaving accordingly.

Compared with no testing how is that worse. I was under the impression that if you had a LFT you took the result as correct then have a PCR test to verify it and then go with the result of PCR.

I agree, I cannot believe that after 12 months of this god awful situation there is still so much ignorance regarding how the virus spreads. I really hope that those who believe that an asymptomatic covid positive child is safe to be around don’t end up catching covid off them or worse end up on a ventilator. Where have you all been for the last 12 months.

@PracticingPerson

DC1 is disappointed so many classmates are saying they won't be tested and that they seem to have no understanding of/interest in keeping the school community as safe as possible.

Unfortunately for your dc1, the government isn't trying to keep schools as safe as possible. Many experts fear these tests will make schools less safe because if there are 20 positive cases, these tests will find 10 at best, leaving the other 10 in school believing they are 'negative' and behaving accordingly.

Which is why the children are also being asked to wear masks, stay in their class bubbles, and asking them not to socialise outside of school.... Schools are carrying on with all the precautions they did previously but with testing to pick up the most infectious cases.

Many experts fear these tests will make schools less safe because if there are 20 positive cases, these tests will find 10 at best, leaving the other 10 in school believing they are 'negative' and behaving accordingly

So if they weren't tested, all 20 would be in school believing they're OK and behaving accordingly. How is that better, @PracticingPerson?

Seriously no wonder we are so out of control with our numbers here. Appreciate if your child has autism etc that is a different issue but my 7 year old has done one 3 times now himself. It’s over in seconds and surely if we want schools and our country safe this is just one thing we need to just get on with.

There's no point getting annoyed with me, experts have consistently been right and the government have consistently been wrong.

If you trust the government, that's your right.

The evidence is LFTs are a) semi-useless and b) lead to misplaced complacency.

Many private companies are turning down these tests for these reasons, but schools are not free to choose.

Which experts are you referring to, @PracticingPerson? There are clearly experts who support this.

@HermioneGrangersHair I tried our current sanitary disposal company but they said they had no capacity either. We are an independent special school so not sure if our LA will be interested especially as only a couple of our children are from our local LA the rest come from other LA's but I will give them a call.

So if they weren't tested, all 20 would be in school believing they're OK and behaving accordingly. How is that better, @PracticingPerson?

The bahviourql science suggests all 20 would be in school not knowing either way and therefore take fewer risks.

@Nith

Which experts are you referring to, *@PracticingPerson*? There are clearly experts who support this.

The DCMO was publicly in favour of Cheltenham going ahead. We will all assess for ourselves who we think is most likely to be right on this.

The bahviourql science suggests all 20 would be in school not knowing either way and therefore take fewer risks.

I don't think whoever came up with that knows teenagers.

@Nith if you read the BMJ there are a lot of critical articles about the use of these tests. You can look on their twitter feed and get links to a lot of articles

I wouldn't say it's a unanimous verdict that the screening program for schools will be counterproductive but it's definitely a valid viewpoint and people calling others ignorant for thinking this are wide of the mark.

@Nith

The bahviourql science suggests all 20 would be in school not knowing either way and therefore take fewer risks.

I don't think whoever came up with that knows teenagers.

I think behavioural scientists look at the entirety in a scientific way, there are experts who study teens specifically.

England has been particularly keen to dismiss experts throughout this covid period, and it hasn't worked well.

If people trust Williamson and Johnson, then they will feel reassured by their approach.

This is a sample of the sort of articles in the BMJ about lateral flow testing

blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/12/covid-19-government-must-urgently-rethink-lateral-flow-test-roll-out/

Anyway will be interested to read the latest opinions of the latest iteration of the schools program.

At the moment my personal opinion is that it's an expensive waste of time that may cause more problems than not.

@PracticingPerson
The bahviourql science suggests all 20 would be in school not knowing either way and therefore take fewer risks.

Christ how naive they are .

I don’t even know where to start I am totally 😶.

@Mintypink about what? About what the BMJ article I posted says about lateral flow tests.

I think it's sunk cost fallacy. The government has spent a billion on these not very helpful tests and wants to make use of them so it isn't seen to have wasted money.