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?

Also, if like me you are fairly sure you have covid (multiple pos LF, lots of cases in our area and at kids school) but your PCR comes back negative...
I am staying home because I think it's covid but even if just a cold no one else needs it.
I
Now imagine that 3 weeks from now I am asked to do a PCR as a close contact, or prior to medical treatment. That PCR may come back positive, because of the dead virus remaining in my system. (you are advised to not do PCR for 90 days after a positive for this reason).
This would lead to me needlessly isolating for 10 days when I am not contagious, because I already have it now.
I am also concerned that should I have any long term issues eg long covid, that it will never appear on my medical record because I don't have a positive PCR and therefore the NHS will spit me back out.

@Tinysnickers I hadn't thought of that bit. You'd have to isolate again for no reason!

@siestalady

Also - why is everyone assuming that the LFT positive is reliable and the PCR unreliable? Its almost like people want to be confirmed with covid.

Personally if i had a negative PCR I'd be very happy with that and would crack on with my day. If I felt poorly then (just like - you know - pre covid) I would stay in bed/recover/try and avoid giving it to others until I felt well enough to return to normal life.

Because

1 ) they very ill and no reason as loads covid symptom.

2. if negative pcr but false they they going back to school or workplace spreading cpvid or worse passing on to more vunerable freind or family member whos awaiting booster as immunity waning .

Thye just know how many tests in South west compared to other regions.
Is the number of tests higher than other areas for pcr?
Zoe based on symptom shows south west lot higher.
I would expect incidents in uni students be lower as majority are vaccinated school children are not.

All our seniors school doing is trying keep year 11 apart from other years which is impossible as siblings and travel on buses.
Sent mind back today as gcse assessment this week but worried as couple class mates very ill but negative pcr after positive lft.
Have toddler at home ill and debating ordering a home pcr.

Schools and workplace expect negative pcr as back in.

Expert says you can trust a PCR and 'relax' amid reports of negative tests despite positive lateral flows
Scientists are calling for an urgent probe following reports people are testing negative using PCR tests, despite testing positive via lateral flows.

But Denis Kinane, an immunologist and founding scientist at Cignpost Diagnostics which runs ExpressTest, says PCR tests are "gold standard", with "no doubt about it".

He told Sky News his firm has done approximately two million of them and hasn't experienced the problem, with PCRs the "go-to" test whereas it's very simple to make a lateral flow positive.

Professor Kinane says there's "either something going wrong with the PCR in question or the lateral flow".

He went on: "I think you can trust the PCR.

"If you're positive with a lateral flow and you go off and get tested with a PCR, I think you've got to believe the PCR result and go back to work and relax about it."

And this was on sky news!
Funny that a lot of people are testing positive on there 2nd attempt of PCR testing.

There will be a 'hushing up' agenda here if the PCRs are dodgy. The govt will not want to readily admit that they've sent thousands of positive cases back out into circulation after mistakenly telling them they are negative. I remain convinced that in 2-3 week we will see a hugely increased case rate in the affected areas.

It’s always been known that there’s a30% false positive rate with PCRs, way before these issues. The govt just started referring to them as “gold standard” when they wanted people to access them as opposed to the unreliable-if-showing-negative LFDs, it when they were surge testing.

Never did hear detailed outcome on the bristol varient and surge testing.

news.bristol.gov.uk/news/update-surge-testing-bristol-south-gloucestershire

In fact don't think they surge testing any areas at the moment that we know of..
They do monitor sewage for infection so maybe the results of that may show different picture for the south west.

They only genome sequence pcr postive samples.

@JanglyBeads

It’s always been known that there’s a30% false positive rate with PCRs, way before these issues. The govt just started referring to them as “gold standard” when they wanted people to access them as opposed to the unreliable-if-showing-negative LFDs, it when they were surge testing.

Can you provide reference to 30% of pcrs being false positives?

The information I've seen put 156000 people who weren't symptomatic through pcr tests and got less than 90 false positives. Even assuming they all were false positives that's less than 0.06%.

And at any case that's clearly not what's happening here as many people did a subsequent pcr and then got a positive.

@JanglyBeads

It’s always been known that there’s a30% false positive rate with PCRs, way before these issues. The govt just started referring to them as “gold standard” when they wanted people to access them as opposed to the unreliable-if-showing-negative LFDs, it when they were surge testing.

Is there?! I never knew that. Shit.

Updated article to sort it out

inews.co.uk/news/lateral-flow-tests-covid-test-discrepancy-mystery-deepens-as-dozens-say-postal-pcrs-now-coming-back-positive-1246383?ITO=newsnow

Ok so we are all positive on the lateral flows, we ( Dh, dd and me ) went from completely negative lateral flows ( when ds1 and ds2 were showing as positive ) to firmly positive yesterday afternoon.

I also feel rough, sore skin, temp of 38.2 no cough yet thank goodness but poor DH is coughing for England.

Ds2 was very poorly last night and had a temp at 3am of 40.2 - heart rate was 130 too, normal I know for such a high temp and it came down int he following hour after paracetamol.

The thing is if we had tested positive for the whole time that ds1 and 2 had then I could understand it but we went from a non positive lateral flow yesterday morning to a pretty bright and obvious one yesterday late afternoon.

I've ordered some at home pcr to do when we are a few days in as anecdotally it seems to turn positive after a few days to a week or so - maybe at the weekend. Will do ds1 & 2 tomorrow as they first got poorly on Sunday/Monday.

Aargh sorry @Coffeey and everyone, I meant to write “30% false negative rate with PCRs”, not false positive!!

That is, 3/10 of people who receive negative PCR results are in fact positive.

Also, I don’t know what Kinane, quoted by Sky, is on about - haven’t heard of him before, does he own a firm which profits from PCRs?

From Kinane’s wiki entry:

“Kinane is a Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Cignpost Diagnostics Ltd,[5] a UK based Covid-19 testing company specialising in rapid delivery of Gold standard PCR testing“

• so not necessarily unbiased!

@JanglyBeads

Aargh sorry *@Coffeey* and everyone, I meant to write “30% false negative rate with PCRs”, not false positive!!

That is, 3/10 of people who receive negative PCR results are in fact positive.

That's still a scary amount I was expecting like 0.03!

@Tinysnickers

Also, if like me you are fairly sure you have covid (multiple pos LF, lots of cases in our area and at kids school) but your PCR comes back negative... I am staying home because I think it's covid but even if just a cold no one else needs it. I Now imagine that 3 weeks from now I am asked to do a PCR as a close contact, or prior to medical treatment. That PCR may come back positive, because of the dead virus remaining in my system. (you are advised to not do PCR for 90 days after a positive for this reason). This would lead to me needlessly isolating for 10 days when I am not contagious, because I already have it now. I am also concerned that should I have any long term issues eg long covid, that it will never appear on my medical record because I don't have a positive PCR and therefore the NHS will spit me back out.

. (you are advised to not do PCR for 90 days after a positive for this reason).

When test and trace phoned me on Monday they said for my DD to do a pcr 2 days after a negative lft to confirm she's no longer positive.

North Bristol/Wilts area here. Have anecdotally been hearing of numerous cases of +LFTs followed by negative PCRs for the past 2-3 weeks and it seems to be getting more and more prevalent (I have 4 teens and work in healthcare so hear a lot of rumours about Covid whether I want to or not!).

Indeed, my work colleague's whole immediate family have tested +LFT multiple times and have all the symptoms between them (loss of taste/smell, fever, breathing difficulties) but have now each had 2 negative PCRs so back at work coughing and spluttering and clearly very unwell.

It’s getting ridiculous here. I’m hearing about new cases of positive LF then negative PCR every day and these people have covid symptoms. The government should be making an announcement. We’re going to have massive care numbers in the south west in a few weeks.

Im just fed up. Waiting for a postal pcr result, feeling fairly wiped out. I'm 99% sure it is covid but I really just want to know for sure.
DS told me that several parents from his class have 'flu' but they aren't isolating because it's not covid, but they've probably concluded flu because of the negative pcrs. I'm pretty sure the DCs school is absolutely crawling with it.

@onthinice why do you need to be sure thay she's now testing negative?
If she's done her 10 days and has no symptoms she should be fine to get on with life.
If I understand correctly You can test positive for months with dead virus in your system but it's not contagious any more.

It’s genuinely criminal what is happening down here. Clearly poorly, Covid positive people being allowed out to mix and spread it.

I think this will be reflected as a care home moment.

@Tinysnickers no idea that's just what test and trace told me to do to make sure she can come out of isolation after day 10.

That is such bizarre advice, the PCR booking website even says you shouldn't get one within 90 days of a positive unless you have new symptoms.

@Itisasecret I am actually pretty scared as I'm fairly sure it's now rampant in our town and my elderly parents are out shopping and things, potentially queuing behind someone positive who's been told they don't have it. I feel a bit sick thinking about what the real numbers actually are. We've not been too bad right through as it's fairly quiet place but something feels very different now.