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.

I wonder how quickly parents who have refused their DC’s having the tests and wearing a mask complain when their class gets sent home due to Covid cases in their class.

@BerylCook

ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia It’s shocking what I put my teenage babies through

Make sure you always insist on lots of personal space (indoor buildings or transportation) preferably two metres if not one as in all "safe" schools (naturally) with face to face interactions. You would not want anyone invading your personal breathing space as that's so invasive (especially unmasked) and dehumanising too. And remember should the current Spring weather turn frosty - snowball fights can be invasive and dehumanising to snowflakes too. So much today is invasive and dehumanising but Covid in your lungs is possibly most invasive and dehumanising of all to keep out. Good luck and stay safe as humanly as possible.

Dc2 has agreed to have the test as long as he can do it himself so he is having his done as well.

I'm not consenting. Child is autistic. Just the Covid safe school environment is anxiety inducing for her. If she was tested in the morning she would not be in a state to learn afterwards. She would do testing if she had symptoms/was exposed but I cannot subject her to 2-3 times weekly tests just in case.

Both parents work from home. None of us go out except for walks. Shopping delivered. No visitors.

@UserMcNewName

I'm not consenting. Child is autistic. Just the Covid safe school environment is anxiety inducing for her. If she was tested in the morning she would not be in a state to learn afterwards. She would do testing if she had symptoms/was exposed but I cannot subject her to 2-3 times weekly tests just in case.

Both parents work from home. None of us go out except for walks. Shopping delivered. No visitors.

Then maybe you could try the two tests they want students to do at home each week. A more relaxed environment and time of day to suit your child can be picked.

[quote rwalker]@PracticingPerson
Of the asymptomatic cases, LFTs will pick up at best half. But with kids it will not reach that - because LFTs detect cases with high viral load and asymptomatic cases often correlate with low viral load.

Obviously LFT far from ideal but with over 10 millions pupils in the uk where do you think the capacity to provide 10 million PCR test a week would come from.

NO EXTRA SPACE OR AIR FILTRATION IN SCHOOLS how do you propose they magic up new classrooms over night even if they built them it would take years. Air filtration systems again would take years to install thats if they equipment and firms who fit it were available to do it .[/quote]
As I have stated, my kids are doing the fucking pointless tests.

All I have said is the tests are rubbish. If you think the tests are good then just at me and move on.

Cummings bought these tests before they were approved, then struggled to get them approved, private companies have turned them down because they are so unreliable, many scientists think they will cause more problems than they solve.

On the other issue - the government has had a whole YEAR to try to introduce some genuine mitigation into schools.

What we all can see - because actions speak louder than words - is the government don't give a shit how many children get covid. They don't care about the education disruption, the risk of long covid or the risk to clinically vulnerable children.

We have booked our tests.

@UserMcNewName totally understand. I think a lot of people under estimate how traumatic some things are for children and adults who have autism. My son has self harmed over something that most people would be fine with.

I would be allowing DS13 to have one but he is flat out refusing. He has autism spectrum disorder and his anxiety went right through the roof when I mentioned what they entailed. He gets nosebleeds often so I’m suspecting this is one reason and the other when he had tonsillitis a few years back they put a stick in his mouth to check his throat and the he almost threw up. I’ve not consented for the lateral flow tests but am going to suggest if they gave the spit tests he would be happy to do them. Still waiting to hear from his SEN teacher to confirm plans.

@PracticingPerson
On the other issue - the government has had a whole YEAR to try to introduce some genuine mitigation into schools.

The problem is more classrooms and air filtration would take YEARS

air filtration would take YEARS

Once again, other countries have managed it. Bought air filtration units for schools or at least made sure the windows opened.

People claim all this stuff is impossible when in fact the govt really just doesn’t want to.

@noblegiraffe
ONCE AGAIN, OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE MANAGED IT. BOUGHT AIR FILTRATION UNITS

Waste of time for air filtration to work the room has to be practically air tight with ducted air processed through filtration system . The work involved is huge . Also these are power hungry machines to have enough units running to offer filtration to all classrooms they would proberly have to replaced the electricity feed to the school.
To get a stand alone unit and just plug it in wouldn't offer any reasonable level of filtration .

Goodness, some people must have real issues to be justifying the shit provision our kids get in English schools.

My kids deserve better and all English state school kids deserve better. If you don't think your kids deserve better that's up to you.

There's plenty that could have been done. If you want to defend the government, who have systematically underfunded vital services including school for eleven years, that's your politics and you are entitled to them.

But you won't get me to repeat the lie that they had no options.

• The tests are shit.
• Mitigation in schools has been deliberately ignored despite there being options.
• The government are making a choice in all this.
• The government are choosing for more children to be unwell than has to happen.

So I have had both a lateral flow and a pcr test and they are awful. Poking deep up your nose. My DD is already anxious about it.

@PracticingPerson

Goodness, some people must have real issues to be justifying the shit provision our kids get in English schools.

My kids deserve better and all English state school kids deserve better. If you don't think your kids deserve better that's up to you.

There's plenty that could have been done. If you want to defend the government, who have systematically underfunded vital services including school for eleven years, that's your politics and you are entitled to them.

But you won't get me to repeat the lie that they had no options.

• The tests are shit.
• Mitigation in schools has been deliberately ignored despite there being options.
• The government are making a choice in all this.
• The government are choosing for more children to be unwell than has to happen.

Then refuse consent then because that will show them🤦‍♀️

Maybe instead of whining on a consent thread about the test. Start a new thread entitled: Cutting off my nose to spite my face😳

@noblegiraffe

air filtration would take YEARS

Once again, other countries have managed it. Bought air filtration units for schools or at least made sure the windows opened.

People claim all this stuff is impossible when in fact the govt really just doesn’t want to.

It isn't in possible but it would take longer than we have. Some of the newer schools in particular are designed prisons. One large building, central corridors, third of rooms with no windows, large open stairwells and cladding that would have to be removed or damaged in some way to allow this ventilation.

@Blessex

So I have had both a lateral flow and a pcr test and they are awful. Poking deep up your nose. My DD is already anxious about it.

You get used to it very quickly tbh.

My colleagues have been doing the tests twice a week since January and it's just second nature now.
I've done 3 in total and the second two were much easier than the first, I return to work/school on Monday so start my twice weekly lateral flow ones in Sunday.

@Abraxan yep I don’t mind doing it myself. I am just very worried about what we are about to put our kids through.

Reading this thread, the government are going to have make testing mandatory for NT children without a genuine physical impairment that prevents swabbing.

It's incredible that many people think their PFBs are so special they can't be expected to show a tiny bit of altruism and take a few seconds of mild discomfort to potentially save lives.

Or they could scrap them as having no value at all. A test with a 97% chance of returning a negative when it should be positive in order to prevent the level risk of transmission from asymptomatic positives which is not statistically different from 0% is worse than useless and likely to increase spread amongst symptomtic individuals. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of pupils who will miss school each week from false positives. Mass testing with LFT is totally unethical bordering on the criminally negligent.

@Tibtom

Or they could scrap them as having no value at all. A test with a 97% chance of returning a negative when it should be positive in order to prevent the level risk of transmission from asymptomatic positives which is not statistically different from 0% is worse than useless and likely to increase spread amongst symptomtic individuals. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of pupils who will miss school each week from false positives. Mass testing with LFT is totally unethical bordering on the criminally negligent.

A group of experienced scientists has issued a statement supporting the use of lateral flow tests in the battle against Covid.

They say the rapid devices have identified 27,000 infected people in the UK who would not otherwise have had to self-isolate.

The findings of a recent report suggested the tests were inaccurate and potentially harmful.

But the scientists say that report was flawed and confused.

Signatories to the statement include Prof Calum Semple, professor of outbreak medicine and child health, from the University of Liverpool, Prof Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, and Dr Susan Hopkins, interim chief medical adviser from Public Health England.

They reject the accusation, in a report by Prof Jon Deeks, Dr Angela Raffle and Dr Mike Gill on 10 January, that lateral flow tests (LFT) will cause harm, saying there is no evidence for the "irresponsible" claim.

And they say the tests are fast, easy to use and an essential tool in the current epidemic.

The scientists go on to explain that the report confused the role of PCR tests and lateral flow devices.

PCR tests, which the NHS uses to test people with symptoms and are sent off to a lab for the results, can detect dead virus as well as viable virus.

That means people can test positive for weeks after the point they are actually infectious, or capable of passing the virus on to others.

As a result, only a subset of people testing positive with PCR tests are actively infectious.

Lateral flow tests, however, are designed to detect live virus in people with no symptoms who are highly infectious. Results are available in 30 minutes which means those who test positive can isolate quickly.

The Deeks report said a Liverpool pilot of lateral flow tests had "missed infection" in 60% of people - but the scientists say that data has been misinterpreted.

'No gold standard'
Neither PCR or lateral flow is a perfect test, but "treating PCR as a gold standard of infectiousness" is a mistake, they say.

Think we should listen to the scientists rather than people on social media or research that is not peer reviewed. Especially when it is misinterpreting the use of the tests!

❤

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

Think we should listen to the scientists rather than people on social media or research that is not peer reviewed. Especially when it is misinterpreting the use of the tests!

We should look at the actual data. (I am a health scientist)

"Among Birmingham students, only 3.2 per cent of those infected with the virus were correctly given a positive result from the lateral flow tests being used there, according to preliminary data from the university."

"Household secondary attack rates were... asymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI, 0%-4.9%),"

My son had his done on Friday at the school,under 16s had to have parental consent over 16s could sign the consent themselves.Once there if the child doesn't want to do it then they dont have to.Results were texted through about half an hour later.

@Tibtom

Did you actually read and understand anything I posted 🤦‍♀️ Try again

And yes I am sure you are an expert in this field blah blah blah.

I feel an AZ situation coming on🤷‍♀️