9 positive LFTs, 2 neg PCRs, what's going on?

[Winterwonder5]

Just that really.

I've had 9 positive lfts over the last week and 2 negative pcrs. I've got symptoms and feel rubbish.

Rang 119 and they said I don't need to isolate. But obviously I am because I'm coughing and spluttering and I'm aware that the lfts are very specific to covid.

Anyone else had similar?

See other threads on this! Useful advice towards the end of this one:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4371384-LF-test-and-PCR-test

In short, false positive LFs are rare. If you have one or more, plus symptoms, you need to isolate. You have COVID most likely.

We had this with my ds a few months back. He went to school fine and came home with a very high tempreture, headache, couldn't smell and very achy. He slept from 4pm until the next day. I tested him and we got 2 faint positives, pcr was negative so I kept him off school as he was so ill and booked another pcr for 5 days later which again was negative but still tested poison lft. I rang the school and they said they go by the pcr and once he's well enough to go back to school. He was also a close contact of 4 positive cases. I still have no idea what happened but I really do think he had covid judging by how ill he was. If you have symptoms I'd isolate just to be on the safe side and maybe get another pcr. I do know there a few bugs going around too. My dc have had it and it was an horrendous flu/bug. Hope you feel well soon

We had this, daughter run contact with positives not I’ll buy we do the school tests, positive strong LFT and negative PCR so back to school.

I could have written this post!!!

Two separate PCRs have come back negative yesterday and today for a family member .

I am at a loss!!

Argh predictive text - we did the weekly school LFT

Have you used different lateral flow kids. I had a staff member who had this. He got another pack of lateral flows and tested negative. They reckon it was too do with the liquid solution. ( in NHS we had packs with a bottle of solution and for some reason his was dodgy)

Good to know I'm not alone! Thank you for that thread, it's really helpful.

Yeah I've tried 4 different boxes. I've had 2 drive through tests come back negative so far. Waiting on a 3rd postal one hopefully that'll be today!

It's overwhelmingly likely at this point it's covid but it would be nice to have confirmation.

Re the thread linked above, yes some useful advice but NB it’s from mid October when the Immensa lab errors were happening. The government has suspended processing of test centre swabs at that lab.

However some scientists believe this type of error is still happening (at other labs obviously), but to a lesser extent.

Meanwhile lateral flows have been shown to give a tiny percentage of false positives.

Yes, you’re right @JanglyBeads, it was right in the middle of the lab problems which were widely advertised to be impacting the south west, but there were also a lot of cases in the south east. That just threw an additional spanner in the works! OP, I know how you feel. I had no doubt I had it (6 positive LFs from different boxes) and symptoms, but unsettling not to have the PCR confirmation. I gave up after 2 but I dare say it would have been positive at some point!