Why have the number of virus tests taken each day suddenly shots up?

[Trumpety]

From the government dashboard, the number of virus tests conducted seem to have doubled in the last week (UK). What is driving this? Are they including the school kids taking LFT or something?

@Trumpety

I’m surprised it includes school testing by as those tests are known not to be as accurate. Does it include all the people testing for work as well (nurses etc)?

The work tests are LFTs too, we have been doing them since early last month,

@houndedbytheherd

I thought the lft result wasn't counted because of false positives

School testing sites count as official testing sites so all the LFT results from schools are counted in the figures.

LFTs done at home don't - any positive LFTs done at home need to be confirmed by a PCR from an official testing site.

So once these LFTs at schools are finished (only the first 3 are done in school, then LFTs are done at home) the figures will go back down again (presumably asymptomatic spread reduced also by school isolations).

My DC haven't started the home testing yet so not sure on the details but is it accurate that positive home lfts need to be confirmed by PCR or can be if you think the result is wrong?

If a child has symptoms and gets a positive result do I have to get it confirmed?