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?

I’m in Bristol and had a negative PCR on Monday. I’ve just been texted by NHS Test and Trace to go for another test.

They really need to officially announce (very quickly), which locations/test centres are affected here. Samples from all over the place could and will have been processed at that Wolverhampton Lab. Anecdotally it seems to be SW, but is that all of SW? Where else is affected. Makes a mockery of the whole system.

They should have been saying all along (if not for a good while), that if you have a +LFT, then to trust it. Both LFT and PCR have moderately high false negatives, but neither produce many false positives. If you get a +LFT, do another LFT (ideally from a different batch). That should be sufficient. But we've put all our eggs in the PCR basket, and now we're finding some tory crony has dropped the basket.

@worriedatthemoment god no, they were poorly so there was no way I was sending them back also thankfully the headmistress had a brain and when I told her that the boys had both had 3 positive ( and I mean bright red lines ) lfts she said that she had been hearing anecdotally from other heads in the area ( we are mendip but the boys go to school in Wiltshire ) that there was an issue with the pcrs and have been for a few weeks.

@Itisasecret exactly! Imagine if I'd sent both boys back? As it was they were too poorly on Monday/Tuesday but today they are up and arguing over Lego so maybe I'd have thought about sending them in, certainly on Monday.

Is the Wolverhampton place responsible for the SW ? I wonder how many processing centres there are ?

@altmember you are so right, even my gp yesterday said that the incidence of false positives are pretty much negligible on both pcrs and lfts so if you have done a couple of positive lfts then I'd take that as red.

@Wagsandclaws thats lucky you have understanding head ans one in Know
Looks like my ds2 may have covid now we are in sw so makes you wonder if has it as people have been returning with covid
Lots of cases here at the moment

@altmember

They really need to officially announce (very quickly), which locations/test centres are affected here. Samples from all over the place could and will have been processed at that Wolverhampton Lab. Anecdotally it seems to be SW, but is that all of SW? Where else is affected. Makes a mockery of the whole system.

They should have been saying all along (if not for a good while), that if you have a +LFT, then to trust it. Both LFT and PCR have moderately high false negatives, but neither produce many false positives. If you get a +LFT, do another LFT (ideally from a different batch). That should be sufficient. But we've put all our eggs in the PCR basket, and now we're finding some tory crony has dropped the basket.

Agree with this. Why can't they say a positive of either means isolate? I know of people this has happened to where we are (scotland) so pcrs not infallible anywhere. The real case numbers must be so much higher.

Yes if anyone sees a full list of centres affected it would be handy if it could be posted here.

Yes, BBC stating some results in the South East and Wales may be affected by this lab.

To add to parents in Bath's woes, we've been told that the school vaccine service hopes to have vaccinated 12-15 year olds by the END of November. Looking at the daily stats they've not done a single child yet.

I wonder how many children would have avoided getting ill if they hadn't cancelled appointments (DD should have had hers last week) and the PCRs had been processed correctly.

Good that people are being asked to retest. However presumably that doesn’t really help people that have now recovered. Who may now realise that they could have passed it on as they were following the legal guidelines. That was almost totally avoidable.

Hugh Pym on bbc not even mentioning the fact that clearly tens of thousands could have been spreading it while following guidelines, and the impact this has had on schools in particular.

@Wtf1980

They seem to be saying Newbury testing site nit really mentioning any others. Do people honestly believe this place and lab is the only one to be having problems with PCRs?

A poster on a different thread pointed out the timing coincidence of this happening when many people - across the country - are suffering from 'the worst cold ever'.

I wonder if any other countries are currently experiencing high numbers of 'super cold' cases?

@altmember

They really need to officially announce (very quickly), which locations/test centres are affected here. Samples from all over the place could and will have been processed at that Wolverhampton Lab. Anecdotally it seems to be SW, but is that all of SW? Where else is affected. Makes a mockery of the whole system.

They should have been saying all along (if not for a good while), that if you have a +LFT, then to trust it. Both LFT and PCR have moderately high false negatives, but neither produce many false positives. If you get a +LFT, do another LFT (ideally from a different batch). That should be sufficient. But we've put all our eggs in the PCR basket, and now we're finding some tory crony has dropped the basket.

I totally agree with you regarding +LFTs, esp if you have symptoms!

People that I know have been contacted by t&t and this morning to get another test done.

Not just the south west (sorry if already mentioned). We're in the North West. my daughter got 2 positive lateral flows and a negative PCR. We were told to follow the PCR result. Other kids in her class (year 1) also have the same symptoms, all have negative PCRs. Very, very strange!

Obviously causing a backlog etc as we are still waiting for yesterdays pcr results normally come with 24 hrs around here. Except on the odd occasion

@CiderWithLizzie

I’m in Bristol and had a negative PCR on Monday. I’ve just been texted by NHS Test and Trace to go for another test.

Oh cool thanks, good to know they text you. I'll wait and see and not panic.

@Madcats

To add to parents in Bath's woes, we've been told that the school vaccine service hopes to have vaccinated 12-15 year olds by the END of November. Looking at the daily stats they've not done a single child yet.

I wonder how many children would have avoided getting ill if they hadn't cancelled appointments (DD should have had hers last week) and the PCRs had been processed correctly.

I'm in Cornwall, and we're getting hit pretty bad with covid. 1/3rd of dd school's teachers are off sick, and they year groups are being closed on a daily rota - so 2 years out of 5 are at home on any given day. Yesterday they've told every student to get a PCR and start doing daily LFT. Local cases are running at about 1000 per 100k, and it must be mostly school kids vaccinations are suppressing it in older age groups.

But they're still saying kids need to go back after a +LFT if they get a -PCR. No idea if we're affected by the dodgy lab problem yet though.

The school have checked with the local health authority (or whoever coordinates vaccinations in schools), and dd's school is scheduled in for end of November. I don't know of any school vaccinations happening in Cornwall yet. By then every kid in the school will have had it, and had it recently, so they won't be able to have the vaccine soon after anyway. Complete shambles (again), they should have been offering vaccines to 12+ since July.

To be fair looking like my son has covid and he has had the one jab 16 year olds get back in august , hopefully that means it stays mild as he is not to bad at the moment at all

www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trace-how-we-test-your-samples/nhs-test-and-trace-how-we-test-your-samples

www.gov.uk/government/publications/list-of-private-providers-of-coronavirus-testing/list-of-private-providers-of-coronavirus-testing

It doesn't state which lab is used by which local authority area.

@Tinysnickers

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.

I saw this school is closing in Cornwall no idea how many cases.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-58925606.amp

TBF @3asAbird I'm not sure that particular school is closing for a firebreak entirely due to Covid, although that may be the spin that gets put on it - there was a particularly traumatic incident there yesterday for the students (which I'm not going to link to, it's not horrible or graphic but it must have been very distressing for the young people involved) so they're either the unluckiest school in Cornwall or the HT has made a very sensible decision factoring in everything that's going on.

@Notsurewhyimhere80

Not just the south west (sorry if already mentioned). We're in the North West. my daughter got 2 positive lateral flows and a negative PCR. We were told to follow the PCR result. Other kids in her class (year 1) also have the same symptoms, all have negative PCRs. Very, very strange!

It seems almost like the government that wanted herd immunity and didn't care about the human cost are deliberately concealing the true numbers, given that we locked down for far less.

I don't clamour for a lockdown and closed schools, but I do want transparency and safety. Why is there no attention being paid to the variant detected in France that evades PCR?

Have they sent out all the texts now do we think ?

Just saw this www.gov.uk/government/news/testing-at-private-lab-suspended-following-nhs-test-and-trace-investigation

If you receive the text but you’re over the 10 days and symptoms are long gone, is it necessary to repeat the PCR?

My 4 yr gs in the SW had a PCR test on the 4th October and my dd has received the text but his cough got worse so he had a PCR Test on 13th which again was negative but ended up in hospital last night with a viral wheeze so had another test on arrival which again was negative so she is not going to have another test as he finds the test traumatic.

I had a negative PCR on the 2nd but have not yet received a text but I was tested at a different test centre also in the SW so I am hoping that my negative test is correct.