Will you continue with school testing at home?

[Orangeblossom1975]

Just wondered what others think about this. They have had the 3 tests at school and now taking the tests home.

I'm a bit concerned about false negatives. Wondering whether to continue with it or not. You have to upload the results to a website I understand.

Yes we will. It won't detect everything but it will detect some.

Surely an occasional false negative is outweighed by more cases being identified?

Any false positives can be overruled by a negative PCR test if the LFT is taken at home.

Recording the result on the website is very easy.

It's very important that as many people test as possible. Suppressing covid and avoiding lockdown is a group effort.

The problem is that (as has happened already in a nearby school) if they then do a PCR test (more sensitive) and that comes back negative, they still go by the first test result, meaning DC and contacts have to isolate though this is putting me off the tests

As well as them not being very accurate

see www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56349116

I will if they ever get them

If you get a positive LFT at home followed by a negative PCR then they can return to school. It's only the tests conducted at school that they weren't allowing to be overruled by a PCR test.

@Borogroves

If you get a positive LFT at home followed by a negative PCR then they can return to school. It's only the tests conducted at school that they weren't allowing to be overruled by a PCR test.

Does anyone know the reasoning for this? Seems ridiculous when it's the same test

@Borogroves

If you get a positive LFT at home followed by a negative PCR then they can return to school. It's only the tests conducted at school that they weren't allowing to be overruled by a PCR test.

How does that make sense, it is the same tests being used at school?

Yes, and dd1 is self isolating because close contact at school wjere the child later had a negative pcr.

If they are done at home the negative pcr releases everybody from self isolation

Because a test centre ( in this case school) result by trained professionals (??!!) is deemed likely to be more accurate than test taken by a novice at home.

Does anyone know the reasoning for this? Seems ridiculous when it's the same test

It's because there's no control or oversight on how home tests are done and there could be issues that cause a false positive so it needs to be confirmed. It's not ridiculous at all, the test may be the same but every home environment is different and uncontrolled

Dh and I are both teachers and doing twice weekly lateral flow tests to try and keep other's safe. Please do the same for the staff at your children’s school.

Yes we're doing it, DS did the first one Sunday night, it was no bother. Don't want him to be suffering from Covid-19 and going to school and spreading it about.

His school lft tested all kids last week and the week before school went back- so 3 tests per kid (95% did the tests) and only 2 positives in the whole school so far.

One was DS friend who had absolutely no symptoms, he did a pcr test which was also positive. So the testing did its job in making sure he wasn't in school spreading covid about.

The reason for the Lateral Flow tests being done twice a week is because this will massively reduce the likelihood of false-negatives being a major issue.

I think I head the LF tests are only about 70% accurate? However, the course of an infected person being infectious tends to last about 10 days. If someone is being tested every 3.5 days, then there will be 3 LF tests done during those 10 days. Each one may end up being a false negative, but the chances of all 3 showing a negative when the person is actually positive is tiny - 30% of 30% of 30% - which is only 2.7% - or to put it another way, a 70% accurate test performed 3 times across a period of time becomes about 97.3% accurate. By doing these tests twice a week, the positive cases will get caught - some of them a few days later than they might have been - and the paths of transmission will get interrupted and outbreaks prevented. The logic is sound.

@Iamsodonewith2020

Because a test centre ( in this case school) result by trained professionals (??!!) is deemed likely to be more accurate than test taken by a novice at home.

It's being done by the DC both at home and school under supervision.

We will be doing them but I will not be recording a positive LFT until it has been backed up by a PCR test.

It says in our email it is until Easter, take it it is stopping then. Why is that I wonder

we will be issuing all pupils/students with 2 x 3 test kit packs to last into the school easter holiday. Additional packs will be issued before the Easter break

@Orangeblossom1975

The problem is that (as has happened already in a nearby school) if they then do a PCR test (more sensitive) and that comes back negative, they still go by the first test result, meaning DC and contacts have to isolate though this is putting me off the tests

As well as them not being very accurate

I was helping with in school testing last week and asked this question of the organiser at school. He said that the policy differed for home and school testing. For school testing, a positive lateral flow followed by a negative PCR still required isolation.

Once home testing started this week, he said the policy changed (as at home testing deemed not to be done by trained people), so a positive lateral flow followed by a negative PCR did not require isolation.

Worth double checking but thought that might be helpful...

Sorry just realised that this has already been said by other posters..apologies!

Yes. To protect the teachers, other children in the class and the wider community.

I wish people would think of others before themselves.

@Orangeblossom1975 you're right, the DC are doing their own tests at school so that they learn use them correctly in the nose and throat. But the processing (putting the swabs in the liquid, squeezing out the liquid and placing that in the test trays) are done by staff.

I was helping with testing at our school last week and 250 kids passed through our testing station on one particular day. That's been the same for those processing staff for the past two weeks. So many of the staff have processed 1000 plus tests.

That's the reason why a positive result at school is treated as a positive whereas a positive at home needs to be checked with a PCR test - neither you nor the children have probably processed 1000 plus tests so you may be doing something wrong.

I think the 2 x 3 packs with more coming at Easter is probably due to supply. We've got 2500 kids plus staff at our school. So we've had to hand out 5000 packs just to the kids alone this week. Times that by all the secondary schools and that's a lot of tests to distribute.

@dcb2

Sorry just realised that this has already been said by other posters..apologies!

It's Ok. There should have been more clarity around this - first I'd heard of it.

We are expected to test children (at home) over the Easter holidays too.