The great South west PCR mystery

[3asAbird]

They say they investigating when we going to find out outcome?

inews.co.uk/news/covid-lateral-flow-tests-negative-pcr-1236141

Is it option

1. faulty batch pcr tests only at South west drive through test centres? 2/ corruption or negligence at the local lab? Does the South west have 1 giant lab that processes bath/ Swindon and Bristol pcr tests
2. some new varient that evades pcr tests like the one in France.

Are we even doing much genome sequencing these days?

We did have surge testing in Bristol last winter with varient e48k similar South Africa but that was pre delta.

We had massive cases in locally June and July.
Local r rate seems low currently despite so many off school and 2 Universitys return.

3 kids my child's year have postive lft but negative pcr.
We don't have any set date for covid jabs.
The school is not declaring any cases at all publicly..

Weirdly people saying home tests giving postive results.

That lft more likely to bring us false negative than postive..

Just makes me worried so much covid all over the region undetected with postives not isolating.

So many if these postive lft negative pcr seem to be school children.
ONS forecast 1 in 14 teens had covid last week yet all teens at our school with covid symptoms have negative pcr?

We've got a lot of this at our school too. Also southwest. Whole school vaccination this week (if it's not cancelled) but I am wondering if this is a variant that evades PCR might the same difference also make it evade vaccine?

We’re not south west but not too many counties removed from….have heard of this happening several times in the last couple of weeks round here too…. School have asked those with persistently positive LFTs but negative PCRs to stay off school to be safe. I do wonder if it’s a mutation that the PCRs don’t recognise….hope not though!!

The school is not declaring any cases at all publicly..

That is usual. The DfE guidance is that Public Health make the decisions about information sharing when their are cases.
For PH to inform parents a certain number of cases and/or percentage of the school need to have tested positive.

If it's all school kids, I'd be sniffing the LFTs for orange juice.

I'm SW too. 2 of us in this situation. One no symptoms at all. One mild cold symptoms (stuffed up nose) not temp/cough/ loss of. smell.
Many kids at school the same, and local fb groups suggest many people in our town having same problem.
Local nursery closed as staff all got +ve LF then negative PCR but they have symptoms.
It's a shit show. I don't know which theory to believe tbh. I'd have got with the variant theory except people seem to eventually get a positive on a postal test which suggests it doesn't actually evade.

I'm going for a lab issue in the SW as prime cause. I'm now leaning away from thinking its cross reactivity on the PCRs (seasonal virus causing a positive) because there are weird anomalies in the SW pcr numbers that wouldn't be explained by that.

Happening in Gloucestershire too (so not just Swindon/Bristol/Bath/Wiltshire).

Apparently if enough PCR tests are done, eventually they go positive after a week or 2, but no-one does this, they just go into school/work and say their one and only PCR test is negative... In hospital they keep testing and there have been cases of eventually an obvious Covid patient with negative PCRs getting a positive PCR, but in the meantime they are on the ward, staff not neccesarily using highest grade masks etc.
Plus some of the people with positive LFTs and negative PCRs are NHS staff.

My two DC's both tested positive this morning. One very, very strongly ( twice ) and one much fainter ( twice again ) but the one with the symptoms tested very strongly and the one without any symptoms has a faint line. That would make sense I think.

Waiting to see what the pcr comes back with tomorrow. We are half an hour away from Bristol ( mendips ) so it'll be interesting. They aren't going in, the eldest clearly has it and if I'm getting positives on ds2 he can stay home as well. Neither Dh eldest dd ir me are showing any positive at all on the lft's.

The other possible solution mentioned is that now more other human coronaviruses - not sars-cov-2 - are circulating, some of these have an N protein that is cross reactive for the LFTs, giving a false positive for covid-19.

I think it's something wrong at the labs.
If you look at the map it is getting lighter blue over bristol and n somerset. And yet schools back and unis.
I dont think it's anything but a cotton bud swab on the pcrs so it's what happens in the lab.
I also know of 1 lft positive and ocr negative in wales (england border) but man had symptoms and had clearly passed onto at least 2 others who did get positve pcr.
So not fault lft.
Maybe they will find an anti vax lab tech or just bad training/lazy etc.
Im surprised
Other countries let us in tbh and then theres the really high rates in kids.
It does make me wonder as SW has had such low rates maybe someone feels they need to catch up quickly

It's not just in the SW. We're in the SE and it's been a thing here too.

Happened to my dd, positive LFTs and did a few of them from different batches.
Neg PCR from drive in, ordered a home test and get a positive last night.
I know of 4 people this has happened to in my friend circle alone!
I'm in the swindon area.

DD ordered one last weekend as we both had lurgy thing and thought it was Covid.

Didn't arrive at all. And we are South West.

Luckily she was well enough. Might or might not have been Covid. She did lateral flow and it was negative.
But PCR not arriving is a cause for concern I find.

I'm double jabbed and DD aged sixteen had her first a couple of months ago and now at college.

Quite frankly, I've given up that anyone at college is isolating at all now.

Lots in our school too where children have returned after positive LFTs - with Covid symptoms - but negative PCRs.

some new varient that evades pcr tests like the one in France

I’ve not heard of this??

Tbh I’m appalled at our government the lax approach to sorting this.

They know that vaccines are wearing off so why aren’t they clamping down on identifying the issue ASAP? Instead of potentially letting covid spread and result in new variants.

DH had this last week. LFT positive, but PCR negative. He had no symptoms though. Plus he had been in contact with no one with Covid, and no one has since had a positive LFT. (He weekly commutes and lives with his work colleagues during the week so they work together and socialise together and are counted as a household together).

We are guessing his is a normaL fluke. But it was near Swindon.

FFS. It’s not some weird variant that’s undetectable. That’s total bollocks. Yes, they are doing a hell of a lot of genome sequencing still here.

This is just yet more mass hysteria that the media is now whipping up. Covid is here to stay. Vaccines are doing fine, they are not wearing off. They are continuing to stop the vast vast majority of the population becoming seriously ill. Boosters are underway anyway.

I’ve got covid now. Second time in a year. Double jabbed. Feeling pretty poorly, just a bit flu like really. Was I worried, no. I was out enjoying life to the full. Am I worried now, no. Am I annoyed, no. It’s just one of the illness of life now. Much like anything else. I’m frankly far more anxious about my kids bringing home norovirus. Give me covid anyday!

I think it’s a lab issue. The labs used to have quite a few senior scientists from academia taking sabbatical to help out overseeing their operation and a number of people working there were post PhD. Now everyone’s either gone back to their actual job or has moved on as they don’t want to do the monotonous shift work for low pay whilst be not adding anything with regards to career progression.

@karma1981 did track and trace tell you to isolate 10 days from the first positive lateral flow (despite initial negative pcr) or 10 days from the eventual positive PCR result?
Ive got a postal test coming but I will be day 8 or 9 by the time I get a result so I don't want to do another 10 days isolating for when I've already done 8/9 since the pos LF!

If so many people who think they have COVID are getting negative PCR results, why are we still having new infections in the 30000’s each day? as reported in the media.

My dd had symptoms on the Thursday (actually before but not the main 3).
So she has to isolate until the 17th.

Vaccines are wearing off which is exactly why we are having boosters 🤨

I would bet money on my Oh having Covid. Literally all the symptoms including loss of taste and smell (remember in the early days when posters here were reporting being told by HCP's that was NOT a symptom? LOL).

Negative everything.

Zippy1510 yes, it'd be interesting to know if it's particular labs that have the issue (although I appreciate there's a number of factors that will need looking into).

I read about this on mn last night and was concerned as my dd had a positive lft so we'd just got back from test centre. Her result came back positive 12 hours later, so we were not effected.

I wonder if the new lfts are better and are detecting a local variant that the pcr has not been tweaked to pick up.

I don't think there is one large regional centre. I know those from my town go to the local district hospital for results.