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?

@Tinysnickers

To add to the mystery, case rates suddenly falling rapidly in SW areas when England is climbing quite fast as a whole. Suggests that positive results are not being correctly identified. I don't have the zoe app by maybe someone who does can see if their figures for these regions agree.

the case rate falling is really no mystery at all, we had a big spike here in July when the Delta hit and it went through schools and young people very quickly, high levels ongoing over summer hols. We have a larger population of younger people in my city so proportionally less of the population had been jabbed prior to the autumn. Also many areas of the south west are holiday hotspots so you could see the impact of tourists bringing virus to areas with previously low rates. Now students are back and many have had jabs now or already had the virus so as with any area a peak is followed by a dip ,its still ticking over though...but really no mystery as you can see from our local figures over the last few weeks, its going to go in peaks and dips all over the country at different times.

@Tinysnickers

To add to the mystery, case rates suddenly falling rapidly in SW areas when England is climbing quite fast as a whole. Suggests that positive results are not being correctly identified. I don't have the zoe app by maybe someone who does can see if their figures for these regions agree.

I did wonder of the government kept ratio postives to negatives in each region. South west has 2 large universities Bristol 2 in Bath I just don't buy the results considering how many in secondary struggling right now.

Zoe data

Also yes I remember from press conference last autumn/winter good old JVT don't tear pants off of infection in other age groups spread to older age groups.

65plus grandparents waning immunity has they had jabs early
Also grandparents doing childcare.

twitter.com/alexselby1770/status/1447236422814085128?s=20

40 to 50 who I suspect higher risks than 30 and under treated badly yet lot parents 40 to 60 especially secondary age parents.
Also teaching staff even double jabbed doesn't protect them..

Had to laugh at warn and inform letter which I assume as we reached magic 10% pcr tested postive.

Ways to avoid covid spread

Lateral flow regularly we do and its postive.
Get pcr test if negative return to school or workplace.
Avoid mass gathering indoor
Get a jab no date for our school yet get 12 to 15 year old just 1 single jab.

My daughter is now symptomatic, multiple LTF + negative at a SW drive through. PCR by post on order. I could send her into school to infect all of the class before half term. I’m not doing that as living and working in the SW, there is clearly a very serious issue.

@s1h2o3na
I wouldn't call Swindon a top summer holiday hotspot. Nor Bristol. And the return of students to 2 universities in Bristol is surely more likely to spike a rise in cases than a fall? I remain convinced that there is something weird going on.

@3asAbird I may not be remembering this exactly right but I saw somewhere on twitter yesterday that the average positivity rate of PCRs is 15% and it has dropped in SW or parts of to around 7.5%. Which is weird.

I know of quite a lot of people who have tested positive on LFTs and not on PCRs and have just gone about their business (which is government guidelines).
My dd had the same thing happen but because I now know of this happening I got her tested again and it came back positive.
If this is making numbers low I really don't know.

Positive LF is only recorded in case numbers if the person registers the result online.
However, if that person then gets a negative pcr their positive is removed from the data anyway.
Plus I suspect most people don't even register their LF results.

I'm sitting at home bored because I had pos LF and 2x neg PCR. I don't trust it though so I'm staying in.

I’m Somerset and lots of dds friends have tested positive on lft and negative on pcr. They’re al back in school so I hope it’s not a problem with the pcr tests…

Would explain why we’re on amber alert in school and cases are still rising though.

There is something wrong. My 2 neices tested themselves as one of their good friends has it - neither have symptoms what so ever. 6 negative lfts followed by a positive pcr their other friend who has all the classic symptoms tested positive on lfts but negative on pcr. She is ill but school have told her mum that without proof of a positive pcr she should be in school.

Christ knows what’s going on! I can’t get my head around it. Something is going wrong.

I had a negative PCR from a SW drive through, absolutely KNEW I had COVID after being at home with +ve DS and DH. I ordered a home PCR test and lo and behold, it came back positive!

So many stories from local Facebook pages and friends of multiple +ve Lat Flow tests followed by -ve PCR and schools demanding children attend as they are deemed to be negative.

Do we think the drive throughs are incompetent then?

I don't think it's an issue with testing sites themselves since most are self swabs there too. Either something going on in the labs they are being sent to, or possibly something happening during transport to lab which results in samples being spoiled.
Postal tests do not necessarily go to the same regional lab as the drive thru ones.
Could also be that most people are further into their infection by the time they finally get a postal test.

It could be an issue with certain labs somehow.

My money is on LFTs picking up other kinds of coronaviruses. Most common colds are caused by coronaviruses. I suppose that's good if it means they don't actually have covid (and go back to school as per the guidelines) however unlike what a PP said I don't think that means that the 'pandemic is over' - we'd expect a number of coronaviruses to be spreading around this time of year. No LFTs last autumn I don't think. Or not used by the general public in the way they are now anyway.

Whatever it is I really hope they get to the bottom of the issue soon.
Where this happens, what do you trust? The LFT or PCR result? Until very recently I was under the impression that unless you'd been deliberately fiddling with the orange juice a positive LFT meant you almost certainly had covid.

@Atalune

Do we think the drive throughs are incompetent then?

All of a sudden?

What makes people think that it can't be a new variant picked up by some labs but missed by others? Is it published which primers each lab is using for their PCR? Is it standardised across the UK? Are they all using 3 or 5 primer pairs? Targeting RNA from which proteins? I don't know any of this information. Do the posters scoffing at the possibility of a new variant know? Sequencing won't have been happening from PCR negative samples (though hopefully they're able to use information of close family contacts and symptoms and will be doing this now).

I think that's possible. I hope that someone has starting cross identifying PCR samples for people who already registered a positive LF and are sequencing those which are subsequent negatives.

I'm not so convinced about other viruses triggering the LF because that wouldn't explain how people eventually get a positive PCR after multiple attempts.

@onthinice

Also, slight off topic, but test and trace want me to give them the phone numbers and full names of all my child's teachers and all children she sat near??! Surely they can phone the school regarding the teachers, and my daughter keeps her self to herself and barely knows the last names of the children she sat near, let alone the phone numbers.

This is what schools were doing themselves until July. Would there be any point in contact tracing other children anyway as they don't have to isolate? The only ones T&T should be interested are teachers because if unvaccinated they do have to isolate.

All the examples of this were originally in the south west. Then it started being reported in other locations. So my bet is a new variant which has spread from the south west

I'm going with spreadsheet error

All fine, the DfE are investigating in the next few weeks (!!!!)

twitter.com/kit_yates_maths/status/1447959388350779400?s=21

Here’s a summary of current scientific opinion

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/12/calls-for-inquiry-as-negative-covid-pcr-tests-after-positive-lateral-flow-reported?fbclid=IwAR3Uta8Ri4G2RcqoBqHRUBTuzpxzmR68ctzYpoWLxH8IMgOcJVaQ_wtYHq8

They need to tell people what to do now! Employers are still telling people they can come in if PCR is negative as that's more reliable than lateral flow.

This thread makes me feel like it's March 2020 again