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?

You can test positive for quite a while and it could be useful to know if you have had covid.

You could ask the friend's family how they feel now that it turns out you might well have had covid only a few days ago.

Like I said, I don't know where UncleJo46902375 got his figures from, but the areas he highlighted were mainly in the South West.

The areas UncleJo lists are because they al show huge jumps in numbers of positive results in the last couple of days - indicating that their previous rates were falsely low.

@JanglyBeads yes true but in south somerset if you need a test after 3.30 ish you have to go to another county or district so not sure how they show the areas and tests , seems in my area last few weeks I know more with Covid than the whole pandemic , and if any have my sons current symptoms you would just miss it

I guess Cheltenham has been effected.... look at the last few days.

Do you reckon this is the backlog of people who were pretty certain they were positive retesting, or the spread from people who were positive but told negative?
I hope it's the former, in which case once the backlog is through, there should be good size drops.

MargaretThursday it was reported in the local paper that Gloucestershire had reported 1000 yesterday - that's a massive leap for Gloucestershire, Cheltenham over 300 cases, Tewkesbury & Stroud over 200 cases. From what I can gather the whole of a private school was tested on Monday - I've been keeping an eye on the numbers for that postcode which have been ranging 5-8 daily, it was 11 yesterday so that doesn't account for the local numbers.

I know someone who went to Cheltenham literature festival, and said he was really quiet at the time he was there. It's much smaller than the Gold Cup Festival, but Cheltenham has racing on two days next weekend, not great if extra numbers are in circulation.

How far back can you log symptoms as started?. Eg if someone in one of those areas tested tomorrow, out of interest due to this debacle, but symptoms went back as far as 4/10, what would be the earliest date test and trace would accept - last Monday? Meaning out of isolation end of Thursday ? So if a postal test was done, you wouldn't get results til Weds, so probably just Weds and Thurs in (unnecessary) isolation?

Have I got that right ?

The system doesn't let you request a postal test if the date is too far back.

It lets you book drive in from a full week before. I have a postal here and thinking of using it on one of dc.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

Just what my exh told me, he runs a testing lab! (Well did, he quit)

@tiddlysquat

How far back can you log symptoms as started?. Eg if someone in one of those areas tested tomorrow, out of interest due to this debacle, but symptoms went back as far as 4/10, what would be the earliest date test and trace would accept - last Monday? Meaning out of isolation end of Thursday ? So if a postal test was done, you wouldn't get results til Weds, so probably just Weds and Thurs in (unnecessary) isolation?

Have I got that right ?

Our symptoms were 8th October and positive LFD for 2 of us on Saturday-isolated and took PCR on Sunday 10th October. All negative. We all returned to work on 11th October -pinged on Friday and asked to immediately retest. Took test on Friday and one of the DC is positive. Two of us myself and youngest had positive LFD and symptoms -told to isolate for 10 days from yesterday Saturday -I was like -seriously symptoms were 8th October -been told we must all isolate until AFTER Wednesday. 5 days after positive PCR. It's madness -both the DC have been in school, football, scouts etc everything. It's madness. 30 people at work tests positive on LFD last weekend -all received negative PCR -to date 12 of us (not me) have now had positive PCR. I'm double vaccinated as are my colleagues -but they are all positive now and they have all been told to isolate for 10 days from yesterday -in some cases this was the 3rd PCR.

It's a farce. I had 6 calls from T&T yesterday wanting my youngest's contacts -he's done school, football, drama, music etc -madness. I pointed out he had tested positive on a LFD on 8/10 and PCR on 10/10 was negative. So 10 days later is the 19th -the same is happening with multiple work colleagues.

Colleague A tested positive on LFD last Saturday 9/10 -did PCR on Sunday -negative. Positive LFD every single day for the last 7 days. Felt very unwell did second PCR on Wednesday -negative. 3rd PCR Friday -now he is positive. Been told to isolate for 10 days from Friday.

I've had x6 calls from T&T -horse bolted anyone?
Since then x3 emails and x2 tests telling me and the DC to go for another PCR. And yet work is saying we don't need to and we only had PCR on Friday -yet yesterday they are saying getting more PCR's because of contact.

What a bloody mess!

@Greydaysandrainbows sounds like a nightmare - sorry if I’ve missed this but whereabouts in the country are you?

The huge jump is the numbers for certain areas is because so many cases were not recorded in that previous period. The graph would have gone steadily(ish) up to yesterday’s point had all those positive samples been properly processed.

There may be a small effect from recent cases retesting or a whole school testing but relatively unimportant compared to the thousands of missed cases.

Basically the figures for the past five weeks have been huge undercounts. Well smallish at first and then larger as the numbers of positives went up because of spread in schools and more widely.

@Greydaysandrainbows ah think I'll leave it then! Just irritating not knowing. Sorry to hear you're having to deal with all that!

[quote Littlemiss74]@Greydaysandrainbows sounds like a nightmare - sorry if I’ve missed this but whereabouts in the country are you?[/quote]
South west - Somerset.

Some schools are going to remote learning for some years as from Monday. Other school are now asking pupils to do a lfd but daily not x2 a week - it’s a farce. My colleague who I work with last week clearly was ill and had Covid positive lfd every single day and 2 negative PCR. He was so ill. Management insisted he came In and a negative PCR means you don’t have Covid. Bloody joke. He’s infected lots and lots of others - it’s a farce. Of the 30 people testing positive on the lfd and then negative on the PCR - pretty much all were in work during the week - they were all sent to redo the PCR on Friday and literally we watched as they all pinged in and the spreadsheet went from green in their name (negative PCR) to red. By the time I was pinged on Friday there was over 10 positive tests returned in one department - which management shut and went to wfh. They shut the department as phe didn’t answer / return calls asking for advice - there are at least 30 cases throughout work but across all departments. We have no masks - nothing at work no PPE. It’s a joke.

This time last year we were masked up and full PPE and social distancing etc so wtf are they doing!

I’m miles away but was raging when I heard Boris say that the “technical issue didn’t affect the bigger picture that cases are broadly stable”.

Yeah right Boris. Whatever. Thousands of people have been wrongly told they were negative when positive and not been isolating through no fault of their own. Of course it’s going to affect the ducking bigger picture.

Yup Frazzled.

i dont understand, if anyone is "so ill" why are they having to be in work anyway? bringing any type of bug into a school that has similar symptoms to covid will just spread and end up with more people being off or cause more to have the "have I /havent I" situation.. Was at Tesco last night and the checkout girl was obviously ill, coughing and sneezing, they'd even placed her back to back with another checkout person even though there were plenty of other tills vacant. We have such a presenteeism culture here, am starting to feel very gloomy about the winter when I'm normally fairly accepting of moving forwards now that most have had their jabs.

Because the HR systems mean if you're ill so many times you get dragged in for a meeting and told to sort it out.

Yes I also don't understand what someone "so ill" with covid symptoms and several positive lfts was doing coming into work!
Honestly people need to use some basic common sense and think for themselves. It's not up to Gov to tell everyone what to do in every situation.
And I would be putting in a complaint about management that facilitated all these staffing catching covid by lack of basic common sense risk assessments

You have to retest it’s not a request you can be fined if you don’t comply

@Greydaysandrainbows that’s not the case - my text said “strongly recommend”.

They can never force anyone to test (as it’s a medical procedure), only to isolate for ten days from first symptoms or positive test.

@sartorius

Yes I also don't understand what someone "so ill" with covid symptoms and several positive lfts was doing coming into work! Honestly people need to use some basic common sense and think for themselves. It's not up to Gov to tell everyone what to do in every situation. And I would be putting in a complaint about management that facilitated all these staffing catching covid by lack of basic common sense risk assessments

Really - I tested positive on a lfd and had a cough, on Saturday my colleague had a fever also yesterday positive on Saturday on a lfd. Both of us got PCRs on Sunday - both told negative on Monday morning. Work told us to go in - we are in a high powered job and if I’m not in or too many of us are not in - everyone that we are dealing with (think hospital or school scenario) they get sent home.

Imagine this 10 teachers in a secondary test positive on a lfd - some unwell but not that unwell that they can’t teacher. PCR comes back negative, 7 teachers don’t have any emotions, 2 have mild symptoms and 1 has a high fever. Management calls in the 9 that can teach as they follow the guidance around negative PCR. Ill colleague takes Monday and Tuesday off but feels better - still tests positive sent back for a PCR - Wednesday still negative - turning a corner goes into work. All ten teachers pinged on Friday - all take PCR all positive -just how does a school teach 10 teachers down ? How does a cancer ward cope with no nurses and no doctors ? Absolutely none. Meanwhile you victim blame the people teaching your kids - with no masks on or treating patient with no PPE or whatever as the government got rid of that policy. Blame management? Excellent idea - they called PHE x5 times no one returned their call and earlier in the week only insisted PCR was what to go by. On Friday PHE wasn’t returning calls so they shut the department - and you blame management. The fault lies with the lab that are estimated to have made 50,000 wrong negatives on PCR results. Not us.

It’s happened all around where I live. In my daughters school (massive school) they have closed an entire year group and sent them home for a 2 week circuit breakers to try to get it under control. 3 year groups are being asked to do daily lateral flows.

Yet Tesco yesterday - not much food to choose from but - I counted 70 people plus with no mark on, 23 with a mask - it’s a joke. Don’t blame us - if we aren’t in, things happen, serious things - there is no ‘bank’ cover it’s frightening and it’s not in the press.

4 schools in Bristol are sees huge spikes in positive Covid cases literally it’s rife - no vaccinations in sight. They were supposed to be this week and now put back to November - are the government attempting another herd exposure ??? Absolutely no reason for not imposing an immediate circuit breakers in schools and marks back in secondary