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?

@JanglyBeads i think they will look more at hospital and deaths as thats what is more important really especially in areas they know have been affectes

Well yes, of course hospitalisations and deaths (alongside long Covid but data about that won’t emerge for a while) are what ultimately matter.

However because there is still a link between case rates and serious illness /death rates they need to know about the infection numbers.

@JanglyBeads they won't have that until if people go for repeat tests ?
Not sure they can re test the samples already or of they even keep them ?

These two long twitter threads have a lot of information about the numbers. He reckons there are 14 areas of the country affected by it.

mobile.twitter.com/ArtySmokesPS/status/1448968590313545728
mobile.twitter.com/ArtySmokesPS/status/1449289711034454018

@Gingernaut

I suspect that the dates for the dodgy tests could be far wider than claimed.

The problem may be that whatever started to 'go wrong' may have started in June or July, but as the lab was probably still reporting some positive results, they're not looking as far back as that yet.

There will be an inquiry, they may get to the bottom of what happened.

It is stunning that there was little or no oversight and this lab was willing to pass and publish these results, even when the tests were proving negative so many times - there should be someone signing off these results, computing odds and testing tolerances.

Also, I saw no ads locally for workers for this laboratory - who did they hire and where do they come from?

you ask who worked there? The Sun newspaper reported on this in January. So used to not believing stuff in the Sun but seems they had something important to say here and we all missed it www.thesun.co.uk/news/13900590/workers-covid-testing-centre-fight-booze/

Yup @time4anothername

Well no surprise there, after testing negative on Tuesday just had Ds1's results back through the postal pcr test - positive obvs 🙄

Just waiting on mine and Ds2 now.

Such a shambles. I wonder if further errors will be uncovered elsewhere? My Son had 2 positive LFTs followed by a negative PCR a couple of weeks ago. I stayed away from my Mother's carehome as a precaution as he had a cold, sore throat and eventually a cough. We're in NW London and Covid along with the cold are causing a lot of school absences.

I tested in South Somerset on the 6th if October. I had a text today saying it might be incorrect and to re test! Bit bloody late now.

I’ve been to the Drs, dentist and maternity hospital since my result 😩

“I’ll probably just ask this everyday.

Why haven’t we been told which test centres were impacted by the false negative scandal?

People who received false negatives deserve to know.”

(Kit Yates on Twitter)

@Bennetgirl thats interesting my ds1 had test south somerset but 15th sept
He had really bad cough and quite ill, he still has the cough now
I wonder if we will recieve a text although no point testing as 10 days is past, but it would be good to know if he had it or not as the cough isn't shifting

@JanglyBeads those that were affected are being contacted
Maybe the sites don't send to same lab all the time , therefore if you said a site might make people panic when theres went elsewhere ?
I don't know but could be

@Bennetgirl had you had a positive lLft ?
We never did one for ds as had symptoms

Mine was at Yeovilton. I also had my 2 dds and partner tested there and haven’t had a text for them yet.

No, I didn’t bother with a lft as I had a cough and fluey symptoms. My cough is only just going and was really bad at one point.

I’m really disappointed given the places I’ve been since I had my result. I always wear a mask but it still makes me feel awful x

@Bennetgirl my ds was very close to that

@worriedatthemoment I was surprised my test went so far!

I’m 10 days after the test now and symptoms have pretty much gone so I’m not going to re test.

@Bennetgirl the only good thing about my son is because he was quite unwell he stayed of college and sports for over a week and just stayed home.
But that was more luck than judgement
My second ds actually has covid now and he has barely a mild cold , we only really picked it up because of a postive LFT
Im sure my older ds had it , or if not some bad bug as cough still there , but he has developed another cold so testing tomorrow anyway as his ds is positive and we have been able to isolate.
Although all alowed out as double jabbed we are all able to stay pretty much home other than a quick dog walk when its quiet

I don't know where @UncleJo46902375 gets his info, but this spreadsheet shows the areas which used the Wolverhampton lab highlighted on the far left.

Sorry, @ UncleJo46902375 is they guy's twitter handle, he's not on Mumsnet

@Gingernaut well someone just posted who tested in south somerset who had the test which isn't highlighted on the list

Would seem strange that south somerset didn't use in some ways when every surrounding area did

Text not test

@Gingernaut I was tested in the south west and had a text today asking me to re test.

But, three others from my household also tested in the same centre but on different days. Maybe my day was sent there and not others?

@Bennetgirl actually ds2 tested same site 30th sept sue to being close contact and not had text , although passed 10 days so maybe they only used it sometime
Although i read somewhere texts may take up to sunday ?

@Bennetgirl

I tested in South Somerset on the 6th if October. I had a text today saying it might be incorrect and to re test! Bit bloody late now.

I’ve been to the Drs, dentist and maternity hospital since my result 😩

I tested in Somerset on 7th October. I got a test message today telling me to re-test. But isn’t it too late? My symptoms have virtually gone. Perhaps my nose is slightly snottier than usual, but that’s it.

I’m surprised to be taking DD to a friend’s birthday party tomorrow. Not sure what to do now.