600 million LFT not accounted for

[Baileysforchristmas]

Because no one wants to use them, what a waste of money.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/25/almost-600m-nhs-home-covid-tests-unaccounted-for-auditors-reveal

@MrsFrisbyMouse

It's pretty simple. They handed them out like sweets to kids (mine kept coming home with loads of them).

They also made the registering of them a pain in the neck - making you input the same information every bloody time - so people just won't bother to register negative ones.

If you want people to use a system, you need to design that system to be as easy and as intuitive for them as possible.

Exactly this.

@Ostara212 that’s so funny 😂

5 of them are at my house.

Most people I know use them when we’re having large house gatherings / seeing larger groups of people indoors, for all of our peace of mind rather than to record the results. I presumed that’s how most people were using them to be honest.

My kids didn’t pick any up from school/college for weeks and then brought boxes and boxes of them home. They’ve done a couple but the rest are just sitting there. I didn’t log the ones they did.

I frequently forget to log my results after getting a negative. I'm sure many are the same

Most of them are in DS’s study. And we had to chuck a full box of 7 anyway due to them not having any actual swabs in the box 🤷‍♀️.

We use them before seeing friends/family so atleast once a week.I’ve never logged a result, didn’t really consider that I might need too

We're supposed to log them with the school, NHS and the Zoe research study. I don't bother with the school as it's just too much so I'm sure they think we're not doing them.

I got a set of five, took 2 both negative. Couldn't be arsed registering it.

@baffledcoconut

Why on earth should you register a negative one? I don’t understand that part.

It would help establish the negative rate

If people only register the positive ones, I can only assume they want lockdown forever.

@CoddledAsAMommet

I can account for the missing ones. They're all in my house. All 600 million of the blighters, the kids brought them home from school in armfuls.

Same here!! I've got cupboards full of them

I don't understand why you have to log the negative results anyway. As a society we've had to change so much in our daily lives to accommodate this stupid fucking virus I really cba to log negative results as one extra thing to do.

We were meant to log the results?!

I forget to log negative tests at least half the time. It's a PITA so I think, "I'll do it later", then the window passes.

Never occurred to me to log a negative result!?! Surely the assumption is that if you don’t register a positive result, you haven’t got it..?

I've mostly logged DS's (secondary school) twice a week - all negative.
The school are pretty snippy about it.

I've picked up 2 packs from the pharmacy as I visit a family member in a care home.

I don't know why the ID is so small. I have to take a photo on my camera and enlarge it. I'm pretty quick at logging using a web browser as it does remember what I entered before. But I only have one kid, my sister is a teacher and has 3 secondary children. Doing that twice a week for 4 of them....what a pain!

I'm quite surprised at the attitude on this thread. Anything that helps keep schools open is a good thing IMO. I am aware that they are not the most accurate test, but it's about doing what we can to reduce risk.

It was quite clear to me I needed to log a negative result. It helps to get a clearer picture of rates. If no bugger is testing then how can they monitor the rates.

@MrsWooster

Never occurred to me to log a negative result!?! Surely the assumption is that if you don’t register a positive result, you haven’t got it..?

But how do they know you took the test?

Yes you’re supposed to log all results but is it easy? I thought I’d registered so it would be quicker, but would it fuck.

They’re junk anyway - very high false negative rate. Waste of bloody materials.

Logging a negative test doesn’t help to keep schools open or prevent lockdown from ending though. You need actual action for that.

At this point the U.K. has high levels of circulating Covid at the moment. We don’t need negative LFT results to tell us that. The only thing positivity tells us is whether we are testing enough to catch all the cases. And I suspect using a test with a high false negative rate might screw the results enough that anything it tells us is misleading.

Better just to rely on the PCR positivity rate.

I'm a HCP, I've tested every week (I'm part time so only doing it once a week) since January without fail, but I'm not registered and therefore not logging my tests as I don't want my life or health to be monitored in that way. I believe it is a slippery slop towards totalitarianism.

I will continue to test before work for as long as it is expected of me, I have absolutely no problem doing this (apart from the post test sneezing!!).

orog Why would ”they” need to know that I have taken the test? Surely the assumption is that all people haven’t got it unless they register a positive? What benefit is it to data to know negative results when LFTs are only supposed to be taken when symptomless? Default population= negative until test proves otherwise
(Not spoiling for a fight-genuinely confused!!)

Why do the govt even need to know that we're taking the LFTs? I don't see what it adds as long as people log their positives. They need to get PCRs after that anyway.

My DS is doing them (mostly) but we stopped recording negatives a long time ago, as did all the parents I know.

We test twice a week for work, we have to send a photo of our test, register with the NHS and also report on a separate portal created by my employer. Talk about taking the long way round it's a pain in the arse.