Lateral flow test reg is bollocks isn’t it?

[PatchyTwat]

Just lateral flow tested is all for an event access waiting the 30mins for a result.

I then have to scan QR and register, realised testing the littlest is like wrestling a pissed off badger. I did it anyway, but how easy would it be for everyone to just register the rest QR without ever actually doing the test

Yes.

I do the test properly because I’m going to see my father, but I don’t do any extra tests because I’m worried about getting a false positive and making my son self isolate and lose pay

Yes totally agree!
I am also flummoxed as to why you can do your own PCR tests when returning from abroad. I did ask the question earlier and poster told me that if you don’t do it properly apparently it comes up void but I am really curious. Say you ran it under the tap would it still come up void. Doesn’t make sense to me, in the early days you had to do them in front of someone so that they saw you do it and take it away?

Cant see how on earth it can read void or know!

Me too, hopefully someone with insider knowledge can enlighten us.
I had to log tons of lateral flows for work and I just kept thinking, i could lie. Not that i wanted too I hasten to add. It didn’t really make sense.

@PatchyTwat

Cant see how on earth it can read void or know!

I’ve had a void in terms of it didnt work - no ink moved no matter how much liquid I dropped in

With the LFTs, if you just put drops of the liquid on to the test thingy, without going anywhere near a tonsil or nostril, the control line comes up so it looks like a valid negative result.

Don't know whether the PCR ones are the same.

I read that school kids are getting false positives on LFTs by dropping fruit juice on them

I thought the same thing - people will just not do the test and register a negative result... until my brother had to do one and he had to do the test on video!

@LaLaMelyn I heard that too bit thought it wasn’t true - I got a positive test with both orange juice and coke!

We did one for an experiment… I had covid symptoms did a lateral flow test - came up negative but did an orange squash test - it came up positive… random (I didn’t log that one I put it in the bin)

Article here gives the technical details. I had assumed that the control line was designed to react to something in saliva or snot, but no, it seems the control line is simply to test the test.

It's more complicated than I had realised. There's a region of tiny particles, and as your sample travels through these, they're re-hydrated, and any covid particles get hooked on to them, and particles with or without covid passenger get carried on along the strip. The first line has a layer of antibodies glued to it and grabs hold of any covid giving a line whose density increases the more covid particles there are. Any unencumbered particles then carry on past this trap. and get trapped by other molecules along the control line.

So I deduce that what the control line is testing is that the particles have been rehydrated and are moving along the strip, and have passed the T line.

@all MereDintofPandiculation
But what about home administered PCR’s
How do they know that these have been done corrrectly? This is how the government are checking arrivals from amber countries?

@Cantstandsmugness

Yes totally agree! I am also flummoxed as to why you can do your own PCR tests when returning from abroad. I did ask the question earlier and poster told me that if you don’t do it properly apparently it comes up void but I am really curious. Say you ran it under the tap would it still come up void. Doesn’t make sense to me, in the early days you had to do them in front of someone so that they saw you do it and take it away?

THIS. My teenage DS is severely learning disabled and autistic - getting a swab from him is a nightmare. When he had a fever last year we tried to swab him but it was barely a caress of one inner nostril (couldn't get near tonsils). I fully expected the result to be void but it came back negative. Really hard to see how it could possibly be considered a valid test.

I did a test yesterday to go to an event (not that anyone checked or seemed to care)

I registered it to get the email as ‘proof’ but I could easily have lied, seems very trusting relying on these things