New Flow Flex lateral flow tests v the old style ones?!

[CiderWithLizzie]

My DD in sixth form has tested twice today - she’s been diagnosed with tonsillitis by the doctor - but does she have covid too?! Top test is old style LFD and bottom is new style version. I’m assuming positive but have ordered PCR. Luckily DH and I are both treble jabbed (very fortunate).

Part of the reason for confirming via PCR will be to weed out teens gaming the LF for a few days of school - there were videos doing the rounds of how to make them show a line using an acidic soft drink.
Another reason I imagine is to allow sequencing and detection of variants which isn't possible via LF.
Also to stop people falsely claiming a LF positive to get 10 days off work /covid support payments etc.

These were my daughter’s top two old style one Thursday night, one Friday morning and bottom is the flex flow. Flex flow came up with the test line immediately before the control line. Confirmed with PCR but still completely asymptomatic.

@Tinysnickers

Part of the reason for confirming via PCR will be to weed out teens gaming the LF for a few days of school - there were videos doing the rounds of how to make them show a line using an acidic soft drink. Another reason I imagine is to allow sequencing and detection of variants which isn't possible via LF. Also to stop people falsely claiming a LF positive to get 10 days off work /covid support payments etc.

COVID support payments are turned down in something like 75% of cases anyway, the issue is more that people are not testing than they are faking tests.

@CiderWithLizzie

If the chance of a negative PCR (when actually positive) is higher than a positive LFD (when actually negative), why are we doing confirmatory PCRs after positive lateral flows?

Could be partly so cases get tracked? Lots of people don’t register LFTs.

We’ve been getting the new style tests for a good couple of months now.

@CiderWithLizzie this exact scenario happened to my dc, as I posted up thread. A week has now passed and he's just done a Flowflex LFT. It was negative after 15 mins ( the time they tell you to read it) then a line at 30 mins We've done a few of the old style LFT's this week too, all negative.

Everyone else in the family is negative ( on both sorts of LFT and PCR ) and I'm convinced he doesn't have COVID. No symptoms of anything at all. It's a week since his first positive LFT and if he really had COVID, with 6 of us at home and him being in school for 3 days last week, somebody somewhere would have caught it from him by now, surely?

It's really really weird.

And I also contacted my local Public Health team who reiterated again that PCR trumps LFT and that the timing was wrong for the Wolverhampton lab errors as the lab was shut down before we had the LFT's. They said that LFT false positives were very very rare but they did happen, and they weren't aware of any issues with Flowflex.

Hmmmmm.

@Dauphinois - thank you that’s very interesting. I will be taking daily lateral flows myself this week as need to go to work. DD is convinced she doesn’t have covid - just tonsillitis - which is much better now with the antibiotics.

[quote Dauphinois]@CiderWithLizzie this exact scenario happened to my dc, as I posted up thread. A week has now passed and he's just done a Flowflex LFT. It was negative after 15 mins ( the time they tell you to read it) then a line at 30 mins We've done a few of the old style LFT's this week too, all negative.

Everyone else in the family is negative ( on both sorts of LFT and PCR ) and I'm convinced he doesn't have COVID. No symptoms of anything at all. It's a week since his first positive LFT and if he really had COVID, with 6 of us at home and him being in school for 3 days last week, somebody somewhere would have caught it from him by now, surely?

It's really really weird.

[/quote]
I thought they say read it after 15 mins and check again after 30? So I would wonder if it was actually a positive.

I’m worried my ds does have covid but we’ve had negative PCRs and LFTs yet his classmates including someone he sits next to is positive. He’s been ill for over a week but me and DH are jabbed so we are more protected. My dd has been ill but only briefly with negative LFTs. I may get him one more PCR to be sure

My DD is double jabbed with Moderna - second dose was only a month ago.

How long did your Flow flex test take to get positive result if you had milder end of symptoms but did have some?

I had a positive flowflex & positive PCR. Everyone else was negative on flowflex & negative PCR. Worked very well for us 👍🏻

I am interested in the positive after the time limit thing. Back in late august I had something which seemed very similar to delta symptoms. Old style lft negative but both dd and I had a positive after the time limit on a flex flow. At the time I recall seeing a bit of press re this happening on flex flows so we disregarded it. I didn't get a pcr because I didn't have testing symptoms (looking back that was a mistake) but I did isolate which was pretty easy because I felt so rough.

I do wonder if actually this was Covid but I'll never know as I presume being double vaxxed means I have antibodies anyway.

@RoyKentsHairyBack

I am interested in the positive after the time limit thing. Back in late august I had something which seemed very similar to delta symptoms. Old style lft negative but both dd and I had a positive after the time limit on a flex flow. At the time I recall seeing a bit of press re this happening on flex flows so we disregarded it. I didn't get a pcr because I didn't have testing symptoms (looking back that was a mistake) but I did isolate which was pretty easy because I felt so rough.

I do wonder if actually this was Covid but I'll never know as I presume being double vaxxed means I have antibodies anyway.

You can test for infection only antibodies (n protein) or vaccine/natural infection immunity (spike protein).

@roofingexpert

How long did your Flow flex test take to get positive result if you had milder end of symptoms but did have some?

I woke up with a mild sore throat and feeling a bit groggy today. Dd has covid currently, confirmed by PCR results on Saturday. I did a flow flex LFT today (started a new box on Sunday and not had these ones before) and it took around 3 mins to show a faint line, which gradually got stronger.

@JS87 can you pay for these tests?

A quick google of anti body tests shows ones where it picks up anti bodies post infection or vaccination. I can't find any uk ones which are just post infection.