Does the gov need a clear campaign to explain when lateral flow and PCR tests are suitable?

[Fitforforty]

I keep seeing so many threads of people who are shocked that school/nursery won’t accept a child with a cough and even more shocked that everyone needs to isolate until a negative PCR (not lateral flow) test comes back. If it was just a few people then I would write them off as uninformed but they are 10s a few across the whole of MNs, so I’m guessing there are a lot more in real life. Is the government not being clear?

I think people do understand. They just dont want it to be true a its a pain in the bum. We had a cough go round school not long ago and we had so many got very cross with us for suggesting a pcr was needed. they were more educated than i am. Children of gps included in the but i did two lateral flows!

I have had to take DD1 for a PCR today. I've had two people say 'oh I/DC had similar this week so we've been doing LFTs to be safe...' It's frustrating because I'm fairly sure it's just a cold but if we don't get her result back tomorrow, we won't be able to visit DPs on Sunday as planned for Father's Day.

LFT’s are shit. How many other countries are testing great swathes of their healthy population with massively inaccurate tests? Anyone would think that the government had purchased these shit tests in error and couldn’t admit what a waste of money they were, so had to pretend they have a useful purpose.

Oh, wait…

I also don’t think the government care at this point. I suspect the rules and messaging is going to massively change direction on 12th July, to include vaccine passports and dropping contact isolation for vaccinated people. Hence they’re not ploughing any resources into the testing messaging. PCR and isolating is not “learning to live with covid”.

LFT’s probably caused more trouble than they’re worth, with all the people using them in place of PCR (on purpose or just through ignorance, it hardly matters).

Yes there is lots of confusion. There's been a cough going round our Reception class and the advice from school was to book a PCR or Lateral Flow test.

The only reason we're using LFT's is Johnson. It was his grand "moonshot" plan to reopen the country.

He was told right at the start that they shouldn't be used as people would start using them for "green light" tests and they're not sensitive enough for that. The cost is also in excess of 100 billion. I'm fairly sure that they've been the biggest waste of money in the history of the world.

Reading this thread, what is the point of LFT at all?? Everyone saying they’re pointless… why are people using them at all?

I feel like they'd pick up more asymptomatic covid if they asked everyone to do a proper PCR test once a week/fortnight but I expect they crunched some numbers and also don't have enough labs.

Reading this thread, what is the point of LFT at all?? Everyone saying they’re pointless… why are people using them at all?
The point is that they will identify a percentage of people who are covid positive but are asymptomatic. By identifying some asymptomatic people, the spread of covid is reduced.
They were never designed to be green light tests. That's one reason scientists challenged the government's plan to use lateral flow instead of isolation in school for close contacts of a positive case.
Lateral flow tests are an extra sweep to pick up cases that would otherwise not be detected.

@Oldpeoplesprinting

Reading this thread, what is the point of LFT at all?? Everyone saying they’re pointless… why are people using them at all?

I do them mainly for social conformity. Same as shaving my legs. There is a slim chance thay across my whole workplace it would give us an early warning of an outbreak if a few came back positive.

@Oldpeoplesprinting

Reading this thread, what is the point of LFT at all?? Everyone saying they’re pointless… why are people using them at all?

I think the point is - lateral flow tests might only identify a positive case 50% of the time, but if you're using them to test people with no symptoms, it is better than not testing those people at all.

PCR tests are more accurate, so if you have symptoms it is important to use the more accurate test than the one that has a higher rate of false negatives.

@Oldpeoplesprinting

Reading this thread, what is the point of LFT at all?? Everyone saying they’re pointless… why are people using them at all?

I'm not allowed in work without having done it.