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?

@Tigerblue

Cheltenham has one of the highest cases right now. I appreciate it's mainly outside but Cheltenham races are on this weekend for the first time since lockdown. We went armed with masks, but we were very much in the minority, a few others and staff. I can't see their numbers going down in the next few days!

Yep I’m in Cheltenham, I work in a school and the last couple of weeks have been a nightmare! Thank God we’ve broken up!

This is interesting:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/01/law-group-threatens-to-sue-over-immensa-covid-testing-scandal

Good for them. Someone has to do something. They can’t just get away with it.

I'm guessing it's a case of gross incompetence/ negligence that's behind it. Something completely shocking and inexcusable. I suspect the authorities already know exactly what caused it and it's so embarrassing that they're keeping it very quiet.

Some obviously think the errors are still continuing, at (an)other lab(s)…

twitter.com/lawrencegilder/status/1455980190455279631?s=21

I think there must still be errors happening. I've seen loads of posts just on here about people getting multiple positive lateral flow results but negative PCR, even since the error was discovered and that lab closed down. Obviously some may be genuine false positive results in the lateral flow tests but surely not all of them.

I think they say that even PCR tests have a 30% false negative rate (when the swab is taken DIY). So it's likely that quite a few people are getting negative PCR after positive lft, and they most likely do have covid.

But obviously those false nagative PCRs should be evenly spread throughout the country. Hopefully the health authorities are now checking and comparing positivity rates on a per lab basis much more carefully than they were (sounds like they weren't monitoring it at all, else the SW fiasco would've been picked up much quicker).

It could also be misreading - I have seen a lot of LFT on here where it is the dye that has leaked down rather than an actual line - something much more prevalent in the new nasal only ones (I reckon due to more liquid and it already being in the squeezy tube).